Pumping Blood
by mslaurenmichelle
Summary: My take on what would happen if some of the Glee characters were characters from the a different television show, NBC's The Night Shift. Please read the introduction chapter to understand the basic story line.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Hello everyone. If you follow me on Twitter, you know I've been talking about this fanfic since August. This is a multichapter that is based off of NBC's The Night Shift, and features the same dialogue from the last five episodes of the first season (meaning it's taken directly from episodes four, five, six, seven, and eight). I was considering writing the whole show, but Hulu does not have all the episodes, nor does the NBC app. Instead, this chapter is going to be used for updating you on what happens in the first three episodes so you're not struggling to play catch up, for those of you who have not seen the show (though I totally recommend it).**

The Night Shift takes place during the night shift of the fictional San Antonio Memorial Hospital in San Antonio, Texas.

In my version, Doctor Rachel Berry has recently been named the interim head of the night shift ER. The night shift is full of independent thinkers who don't necessarily like to follow the rules, such as Doctor Finn Hudson, who happens to be Rachel's ex-boyfriend. Finn was a member of the US Army and was discharged a few years ago. When he returned, he was suffering from severe PTSD, and that ultimately caused the breakup of his relationship with Rachel.

Flash forward to present time, and we meet our night shift staff (the name in parenthesis is the name of The Night Shift character):

Rachel Berry (based off of Jordan Alexander): our series lead and the interim head of the night shift ER.

Finn Hudson (based off of TC Callahan): the attractive doctor and former military man who is currently dating Marley Rose, the night shift psychiatrist. He's carrying around the weight of what happened in Afghanistan.

Noah Puckerman (based off of Topher Zia): Finn's best friend and a fellow doctor during the night shift. Puck served with Finn when they were in Afghanistan, along with Finn's older brother, Thad.

Kurt Hummel (based off of Drew Alister): a member of the Army Reserves and is an army medic. He's currently in the closet and doesn't want to be known as the gay doctor.

Marley Rose (based off of Landry de la Cruz): the night shift's only psychiatrist. She's dating Finn and is trying to form a friendship with Rachel, without her knowing who she is dating (as a side note, Rachel sets her up on a blind date since she doesn't know she's dating Finn. It will make sense in the next chapter).

Artie Abrams (based off of Paul Cummings): a new intern to San Antonio Memorial Hospital who often finds himself in awkward situations (and as a note, Artie can walk in this series).

Mercedes Jones (based off of Krista Bell-Hart): another new intern at San Antonio Memorial. She is originally interested in Kurt, but is one of the first to find out he's gay.

Sam Evans (based off of Nurse Kenny): the male nurse of the night shift. He's perceived as a bit of a player and likes Mercedes.

Jesse St. James (based off of Michael Ragosa): the tough as nails hospital administrator, working on ways to cut the budget so the hospital can stay afloat. He's currently going through a divorce and has a slight crush on Marley.

Jacob Ben Israel (based off of Dwayne): the radiologist who trades favors in order for the doctors to get x-rays, MRIs, and CT scans.

Quinn Fabray (based off of Janet Zia): Puck's wife who is expecting twins.

Beth Corcoran (based off of Lynn Zia): Puck and Quinn's daughter (who has not been adopted by Shelby for purposes of this story).

Brody Weston (based off of Scott Clemmens): Rachel's current boyfriend, who Jesse is heavily recruiting to take over the trauma department at San Antonio Memorial.

Blaine Anderson (based off of Rick): Kurt's boyfriend, a fellow Army soldier. 

**If anyone has any questions about the fic as I update the chapters, please feel free to send me a message and I will respond back as soon as I can. If you'd like to read more about The Night Shift, the Entertainment Weekly community reviews about the episode are a great place to read recaps of the episodes from a fan's perspective. I hope you all take the time to read this, as it was a delight to write. I would like to stress that all of the dialogue is taken directly from the episodes of The Night Shift, except for one special Finn and Rachel scene that I've written to add depth to the episode. I will be updating new chapters every Thursday, as I only have one class at school that day. As a general disclaimer, I do not own Glee, The Night Shift, or any of their themes. The chapter titles come from the name of each episode of The Night Shift. Thank you all for reading this note, and I hope you come back for the subsequent chapters!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One: Grace Under Fire**

"Listen up, Alamo people, into the waiting room. If you are not sick, please go home. The night shift hasn't even started yet and you are giving everyone a headache." Jesse said as tons of Alamo re-enactors entered the hospital.

Mercedes stared at all of them coming in. "How long does this go on?"

"All night." Finn said, walking behind her. "They just keep trickling in."

"Every year." Puck said, joining where the two of them were talking. "The Alamo re-enactors drink too much homemade beer and eat too much rabbit stew." Puck said as one of them started throwing up mere feet away from them. "Oh, look at that. Mop up on aisle three."

Outside of the hospital, Rachel was in the middle of an intense phone call with someone. "No, look, if you can't get here, you can't get here. It's fine, it's just, I was hoping that since it's my birthday tomorrow…I understand. Really. We'll celebrate next week." Rachel heard an ambulance pull up. "Brody, I gotta go." She hung up the phone and went over to meet the EMTs.

"Male in his thirties, single GSW to proximal thigh. BP is stable and we found him at the Alamo."

"Where am I?" he asked, looking around at his new surroundings.

"You've been shot, but we're going to take care of you." Rachel said. "Can you tell me your name?"

"I don't know."

"There's no ID. Guy's on another planet. We could barely get him in the ambulance."

"There's another problem." one of the EMTs whispered to Rachel. "He's a Christian Scientist." Rachel and the EMT looked down at his bracelet. "It says not to treat him. So we didn't in the ambulance. We need consent to treat or we'll get sued."

"Don't worry about it." Rachel said as they started wheeling him into the hospital. "This man looks like he was shot with a canon."

"Musket." one of the re-enactors corrected. "I bought it online."

"Hey, hey, hey. You have to put that thing down." Molly said.

"I didn't know it was loaded, I swear. Look, the dude lost it on me. He attacked me and grabbed me like we were in a real fight and the gun went off."

"You cannot be back here." Molly said, walking him towards the waiting room.

"Okay, but can someone check on my arm?"

"Where are you taking me?" the patient asked as they wheeled him into a trauma room.

"What do we have?" Finn asked, coming into the trauma room to assist on what was going on.

"Musket wound. 1830s Alamo special." Rachel said.

"This is one agitated patient." Sam said as they transferred him from the stretcher to the hospital bed.

"Calm down, we are trying to help you!" Finn said as the three of them, plus the two EMTs, tried to restrain him.

"Somebody page Doctor Rose." Rachel said. "And get me something to calm him down." One of the nurses handed Rachel a needle and she stuck it in his thigh.

"Somebody grab the hard restraints." Finn said as the patient started to calm down.

Elsewhere in San Antonio, Kurt was in the fields for reserves training. "I gotta be honest, I have no love for night infiltration exercises." one of the soldiers said.

"This is nothing, Harvey. Army Reserves is nothing compared to the sixty-one days a year of hell for training rangers. You still thinking of signing up, Kurt?"

"I don't know. I've got a buddy at the hospital I work at who's ex-Ranger. Says he can put in a good word for me, but right now I'm focused on medicine."

"I bet you're more focused on the nurses." another soldier said jokingly.

"There's a lack of hotties in the ER." He turned to another soldier. "So, Harvey, what's the deal? A fifteen K at the end too tough on the old bones?"

"Oh yeah, dude, that might have something to do with sitting on your ass in the patrol car all day."

"Yeah, well, my wife loves my lazy ass so it's all good."

"Well it matches her fat ass."

"Hey, that's the mother of my children. And I like them curvy."

"What about you, Kurt?" one of the soldiers asked.

"Oh, I love me the motorboat. You know, just go on right in there."

"Alright, let's get moving. We only have eight hours till the rendezvous point, then Kurt can get back to his nurses."

Back at the hospital, Marley had the unfortunate job of walking a basically naked man to a room. "Let's walk a little faster so we can get you a robe."

Jesse walked up next to her. "Do you have the paperwork for those involuntary holds from last week?"

"Yeah, they're in a folder on my desk." Marley said.

"Great." Jesse said. He walked into her office and started looking for the paperwork so they could be filed correctly. He had a massive migraine headache and noticed Marley had aspirin sitting on her desk. He took the bottle and shook a few out, swallowing them without water.

Back in the trauma room, Finn, Rachel, and Sam were working on finding the bullet pieces in the patient's leg.

"There has to be twenty fragments in here." Rachel said, noticing all of the bullet fragments in his leg.

"Blood flow is good. We need to get every one of those out before—" Finn started to say as the machines went crazy.

"Blood pressure and pulse X are dropping." Rachel said.

Finn started doing an ultra sound on his heart. "Massive right heart strain. A piece of the bullet must have traveled to his heart."

"BP is down to forty." Sam said.

"We need to get the bullet out of the lung now." Finn said.

Jesse entered the trauma room. "Rachel, I just talked to one of the paramedics. And he said this guy came in with a do not treat bracelet on his wrist and that you—"

"I need lydo and epi, one percent." Rachel said, ignoring Jesse completely. "Open up a chest tray."

"If you did do that, then you have opened yourself and this hospital up for a major lawsuit so please, please tell me you didn't do that."

"Look, the guy is lying. There's no bracelet." Sam said, holding up his wrist.

"Rachel!" Jesse said. Finn and Rachel shared a look.

"He had one. I cut it off."

Jesse sighed. "Rachel…"

"Even if she didn't, I would have." Finn said, coming to her defense. "He was dying and he needed to be treated."

"I agree with you, but we get him declared incompetent first and contact legal. We don't just cut things off. I'm sorry, but I'm going to need you to step back and let Finn finish this patient. You are officially suspended."

Rachel glared at Jesse as she handed the needle to one of the nurses. She looked at Finn, who gave her a disappointed look, then slowly took her gloves off.

Across town, Kurt's platoon was driving in the humvee. "Look, I could use a little eye candy right about now."

"What do you mean?" the platoon leader said. "This is one of the best looking team's in all of Texas."

"I think it's time for me to shoot something!" one of the members said, standing up in the humvee and started shooting at the trees.

"Charlie, look out!" Kurt said, pointing to a huge bull in the middle of the road. They swerved to avoid it and went off the road.

Back at the hospital, Finn was furious. "So she saves a life and gets canned?"

"Nobody is firing her. God, why is it so hot in here?" Jesse asked. "Like I said, nobody is firing her. She's on administrative duty. I'm taking this precaution to protect her from any further action. We'll get him declared incompetent and go from there."

"So what, I just sit around all night?" Rachel asked.

"You need to stay away from this patient. And you need to talk to legal and hope to hell Marley finds him incompetent. After that, whatever you do with any other patients, I don't want to know about. Now if you'll excuse me, I really need a glass of water."

"It'll be okay." Finn said.

"Yeah, well, you don't know that." Rachel said. "I don't have friends in high places like you do. Sorry I put you guys in this position." Rachel gave them a sad smile and walked out of the trauma room.

"What's going on?" Sam asked as he continued to pump oxygen for the patient. "I've never seen Rachel act like that before."

"It's a long story." Finn said. "Let's get the rest of this shrapnel."

Across town, Kurt was trying to help the rest of his platoon after the accident. "I need you to help me pull him out."

The guy Kurt was talking to grimaced. "I can't, my shoulder is killing me." Kurt nodded and helped him to the ground.

"I'm going to go try and find Harvey."

"No, Kurt, we need you." one of the soldiers said.

Kurt smiled to himself. It was nice to know that he was needed. "I'll be there soon. We have to find Harvey. I'm going as fast as I can."

Back in the hospital, Puck was looking at the arm of the guy who shot Rachel and Finn's patient. "Hey, is that crazy dude going to die?"

"Just hold still, sir." Puck said. "And I don't know."

"I can't go to jail. I'd never make it there. They'd eat guys like me alive."

"I think you'll be fine. It's pretty clear that guy is unstable."

"Whoa." Artie said, walking into the trauma room. "General, right? That's a sweet costume."

"Any news on the guy I shot?"

"Yeah, they've got him sedated in trauma one." Artie said.

"The waiting room is filling up again with re-enactors." Mercedes said. "And we hooked up more drunks to the ceiling packs."

"And I sent three food poisoning guys home too." Artie said, trying not to get one upped by Mercedes.

"That rabbit stew is nasty. That's why I fight on the Mexican's side. We have a food truck."

"Look, you two only have a couple more dozen patients to go. I'll join you as soon as I'm finished." Puck said. "And I'll let you do one of the EJ's, okay?"

Back in the ER, Sam was talking to a woman who was in a hospital gown. "I've been waiting for two hours to see a doctor."

"I know, ma'am, I am so sorry. Alamo re-enactors have us slammed with patients."

"My stomach is killing me."

"I will get you a doctor as soon as I can." Sam promised as the woman walked away. "Artie, you ordered a G-I on a patient and you haven't seen her yet and she's pissed."

"Oh yeah, it sounds like the stomach flu or something, and Puck is about to do an external jugular and I've never seen one, so…"

"Her results are already back."

"Great, I will see her after EJ. Just start some fluids, okay?"

Across the desk, Finn was on the phone. "Dispatch? Yeah, there was a paramedic Rodriquez, he came in with a GSW from the Alamo at seven thirty tonight. Um, can you tell him to come by the ER? I have some info that he may need."

Back at the accident scene, one of the soldiers was crying. "Kurt, is it broken?" he asked, looking down at his ankle.

"Broken and dislocated. I'm going to try and get your boot off, okay?" Kurt said, gently pulling the boot off. The soldier screamed in pain. "Alright, sorry, I just need to get in there. I can't feel a pulse, which means the dislocation is cutting off blood flow to your ankle. I have to reduce the fracture."

"What does that mean?"

"It means it's going to hurt like a son of a bitch. On the count of three, okay? One, two," Kurt, not getting to three, went to pop his ankle back in place.

"There's blood dripping down the back of your neck."

"Wait, what?" Kurt said, reaching behind to see if it was true. "That sucks. You're about to get even, Mikey. This is a skin stapler. It's pretty self explanatory. Push the edges of the wound together, apply pressure, and squeeze the trigger.

Back at the hospital, Marley was talking to the gunshot patient. "You were at the Alamo, and you were shot." She turned around to see Finn at the door. He motioned for her to meet him in the hall and she walked away from the patient.

Finn handed her a cup of coffee. "He's incompetent, right?"

"He's still too out of it from the anesthesia for me to make a diagnosis. I just thought I'd check since Rachel paged me three times. What's going on?"

Finn sighed. "He's a Christian Scientist. He came in with a do not treat bracelet and Rachel cut it off."

"What?" Marley asked, unable to believe that Rachel would do something like that.

"Yeah. So you declaring him incompetent will go a long way with getting her off the hook."

"Well, first of all I can't believe she did that. But I'm not going to label him without talking."

"He was screaming, he was yelling…"

"Which could be for a hundred of things. Look, I like Rachel, but I'm not going to risk my license or a malpractice suit for giving an unwarranted diagnosis. Especially when she does something that stupid."

"I would have done the same thing."

"What do you want me to say here, Finn? I don't agree with you on this, so let's just not talk about it. He wakes up, I'll make the diagnosis. But don't tell me how to do my job."

"You're right." Finn said, taking her hand. "I'm sorry." He gave it a squeeze and the two of them smiled at each other.

Rachel got back to the nurses' station desk and looked over to see the whole exchange take place. And she certainly didn't miss seeing the hand squeeze. She narrowed her eyes and scratched her forehead. She heard her phone beep and she took it out to see what it was. It was a birthday card email from Brody.

_Sorry I can't be there this week. See you next week! Love, Brody_

"Doctor Berry, please report to the legal department, Doctor Berry to the legal department." Rachel heard over the PA system. She sighed, put her phone back in her pocket, and started walking towards the legal department.

Back at the accident, Kurt was trying to save Charlie's life. "Everything is going to be okay." Kurt said.

"That doesn't look good." one of the soldiers said.

"He needs an OR. Call the med evac so we can get him out of here!" Kurt said, looking at the gaping wound on his leg.

"The radio is shot and there's no cell signal out here. We're on our own."

Kurt sighed. "I can try and pack the bleeder, but that's only a temporary fix. We need to get him to the extraction point."

"That's at least five miles."

"Then we have to get moving."

In the hospital waiting room, Jesse was looking at his reflection in the security cameras. He was absolutely captivated with it. Marley walked up to Sam and sent him a curious look. "Molly said he's been standing there for the past five minutes. I figure he's trying to find a way to save money on electricity." Sam explained.

Marley raised an eyebrow and walked over to him. "Jesse?" Marley asked. Jesse turned around with a comical look on his face.

"I took a couple of pills from your aspirin bottle but I'm pretty sure they weren't aspirin. You want to tell me what it was?"

Marley's eyes widened. "The bottle on my desk?"

"Yes."

Marley looked sheepish. "They were…MDMA."

"MDMA? As in, Ecstasy? Why do you have—"

"I'm so sorry. I swear there is a legitimate explanation."

"What's happening to me?" Jesse asked, touching his face.

"Well, your senses are heightening. You'll be more open and physical with people. And objects."

"No," Jesse said, rubbing his ears. "No, no, no, no, no. This is not happening. I can fight this."

"You don't really have control over it. Maybe you should just sit in your office until it passes." Marley said as Jesse started laughing at something.

"I am so angry with you right now. You women are really messing up my night. We're going to deal with this later." Jesse said as he started rubbing his shirt.

"Drink a lot of water." Marley said before she started walking back over to Sam.

"Jesse's on Ec—"

"Shhh!" Marley said, trying to shut him up. The whole hospital didn't need to know that their boss was high.

"How did this happen?"

"I was involved in an experimental study on the effects of MDMA and soldiers with PTSD. The drug, it releases serotonin and oxytocin, so soldiers can relive their trauma without feeling pain."

"Uh huh, okay." Sam said, not entirely believing her.

"Please keep this on the DL."

"Gotcha." Sam said as he walked away laughing.

Back at the scene of the accident, Kurt and one of the soldiers were carrying Charlie to the medical tent to try and get him help. "Look, I know your shoulder is in bad shape, but we have to keep moving."

"I'm trying, man." He paused for a few minutes. "You think he's going to make it?"

"I don't know."

"He can't die, he's a kid."

"That doesn't mean anything. I've seen a lot of kids die. Age doesn't mean a thing."

"I'll tell you what, Kurt, I want to quit this whole army thing. I joined the reserves to get some extra cash for my wife and kids. I don't want to get killed. Aren't you afraid of getting killed?"

"No one wants to die, but if I think about that out there, I won't be able to do my job as a medic." Kurt stopped as he heard helicopter sounds.

"Why are you stopping?"

"We're on the range." Kurt said, looking around. "The firing range."

"Oh shit, we've got to move!" Harvey said as they started getting shot at.

Back in the hospital, phones started ringing like crazy. "Hey, Molly, I need to see if anyone filled out a missing person's report on John Doe. Will you call SAPD?"

"I'm on it." Molly said with a smile.

Rachel watched them from across the desk and closed the folder she was writing in. She walked over to where Marley was. "Maybe we shouldn't call SAPD."

"We always call on John Doe's. We have no idea what his medical or psychiatric history is. His family could be looking for him." Marley said, looking over at Rachel.

"His family, more likely than not, are going to be the ones to let him die."

"You don't know that."

"They're Christian Scientists, which means they're going to want to stop any treatment that you or I will want to do and that man will most likely suffer."

"Just let me do my job. Don't get all pissy with me because you screwed up and cut off his bracelet." Marley started walking away.

"He was dying." Rachel said, following after her.

"And that's what he wanted. That's why he wore the bracelet. That's his choice."

"To die? When he can easily be saved? And you're backing that?"

"I'm backing personal freedom. I'm backing nobody telling anybody what they can do with their bodies. Would I ever do that? No. But I believe in his right to believe that."

"He may not know what he believes."

"You didn't know that when you cut it off. You saw his religion, and you made a choice. Maybe that guy is incompetent, but what if he wasn't? What if he was a lawyer that had a different belief than yours? Would you still do it?"

Rachel crossed her arms. "Every single time he was brought in here."

"Then I guess we just see things differently."

"Yeah, on a lot of things." Rachel said, brushing past Marley.

"What does that mean?" Marley asked.

"Forget it."

"No. Say it."

Rachel stopped and turned around to face her. "Okay. It means that I know you're sleeping with Finn. And that's fine. It's not my business. But I can't believe after some of the conversations that you and I had about me, him, and our past, you never once thought that maybe you should mention it."

Rachel heard something crash and Sam poked his head out from a patient room. "I need a doctor in here."

Rachel took off running and saw the patient who was complaining of stomach pains from earlier. "My…chest."

"Her heart rate is in the thirties."

"Okay, I'm going to listen to your heart." Rachel said, putting her stethoscope on her heart. "This woman is having a heart attack. Why hasn't she been seen? Page cardiology and give me three hundred twenty five grams of aspirin and grab the pacer pads, we need to do an EKG now."

"She already had one." Sam said.

"Well who ordered it?" Rachel asked.

A few minutes later, Artie came into the room. "What happened?"

"Is this your patient?"

"Yeah, she had the stomach flu."

"And did you order an EKG on her?" Rachel asked.

"I did as part of a G-I work up."

"Well, look at it." Rachel said as they flipped the woman onto her back. "You have an African American woman in her late forties with diabetes complaining about stomach pains and you didn't look at her EKG? She should have been in a cath lab two hours ago."

"She wasn't complaining of chest pain."

"It doesn't matter. You order a test, you are responsible for the results. And if that test is an EKG, you look at it immediately."

Artie looked at the test results. "Inferior MLA."

"Artie, you're an ER doctor. Your job is to think of things that will kill your patient first and label it as benign later. It isn't all about the flashy procedures." Rachel said.

"I'm sorry." Artie said.

"Don't apologize to me. _Learn._ Do better." Rachel said as they were wheeling her out of her room.

Sam came up next to Artie. "I told you to look at the tests, man."

In another part of the hospital, Marley and Finn were walking around together. "I want to give you a heads up. Rachel knows about us."

"How?" Finn asked, stopping. He looked genuinely confused.

"I don't know." Marley said. "We were arguing about John Doe. Big deal. We see it differently. Then it just…came out."

"Right. You want me to talk to her?" Finn asked.

"No, I can fight my own battles. Aside from tonight, she has every right to be pissed at me. We were becoming friends and you're her ex. I should have told—"

"Finn, paramedic Rodriquez is here to see you." Molly said.

"Is John Doe ready?" Marley asked.

"Yeah, go on in." Finn said, turning his attention to the paramedic. "Hey buddy, thanks for coming by."

"My union rep said I should talk to you."

"Your union rep is a douche. Is he in the front lines like you and me? Nah. Let's talk about what you really saw, okay?" Finn said, patting his back as the two walked away together.

In John Doe's room, Marley started talking to him. "I have to determine your competency, so I need you to focus and think really hard. What's your name?"

"I don't know. I don't know who I am. Please help me."

"It's alright, I'm going to help you. I'm going to show you some pictures. It's a test to help you remember. Let me know if anything seems familiar. It can be the smallest thing." Marley held up a picture of a beach, then a puppy, a kid playing soccer, a soldier, then a picture of pancakes. She started to put it down when John Doe said to wait.

"Go back." he said, talking about the pancake picture.

Marley held it up again. "What does this make you think of?"

"A diner."

"Good." Marley smiled. "You like diners."

"Yeah, I think I ate there. At a diner."

"Anything else?"

"Chris…Christine."

"You remember someone named Christine?"

"Yeah, Christine. I just don't remember what she looks like or who she is. I don't remember anything else. Why is this happening to me? Who am I?"

"I know it's scary, but we're going to figure this out and we'll find whoever's looking for you. I promise."

Back at the accident, Kurt and his fellow soldier were caught in the middle of a shooting range. "On three we move." Kurt said.

"Wait, Charlie is bleeding again." Harvey said. "What's happening?"

Kurt pulled back the bandage. "Part of the bowel is ruptured. We have to suture that bleeder."

"This is why you're not going for ranger, right? It's not worth it. We could be killed, and for what? For taking down some damn dictator? This stupid kid is an idiot. He wouldn't be hurt if he wasn't being so damn stupid."

"Harvey, he can hear you so shut up. Now is not the time." Kurt said.

Back in the hospital, Marley was trying to figure out if the patient was incompetent or not. "Is Christine an Alamo actor like you?"

"Doctor Rose," Marley whispered from the door. "SAPD doesn't have a missing person fitting John Doe's description and I've left messages at the Christian Scientist churches."

"Good. He just mentioned a diner and a girl named Christine. Either he took her on a date there once or she works there. I'm hoping it's the latter. Can you…"

"Call all the twenty four hour diners in the area?"

Marley gave her a sheepish smile. "I'll help. How many can there be?" The machines John Doe was hooked up to started beeping like crazy. "Get Finn." Marley went over to the bed and made it recline completely as Finn and Sam came running into the room.

"What happened?"

"He was fine then all of a sudden his vitals started going crazy."

"Maybe it's another embolism to the lung." Sam said.

"It can't be, I got rid of all the shrapnel." Finn said. "It must be something else. Push a hundred and fifty milligrams of almuterol. Wait, it's too late." Finn said, pointing to something on the monitor. "Look at his pressure." Finn took the panels to his chest. "Clear." He watched the monitor and breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay good. Back in a good rhythm."

"What the hell was that?" Marley asked.

"I have no idea."

In another hospital room, Artie was sitting with the patient who had the heart attack earlier. "She's probably not going to wake up for another hour or so, doctor." one of the nurses said.

"Then I'll just sit with her until she does." Artie said, feeling incredibly guilty for what he caused. He rolled his chair forward and took her hand. Rachel, who was walking by to check on the patient, saw Artie was in there, smiled to herself and started to walk away.

Back in John Doe's room, Finn was listening to his heart. "Okay, he needs a stat chest CT and a tox panel."

"Right away." the nurse said, leaving the room.

"Well, that was close." Finn said, smiling at Marley. "So, what did you learn before he started to code?"

"It looks like a mania infused state. Based on the retrograde amnesia and the aggressive behavior towards the re-enactors…"

"So his case is even more complicated." Finn said, his head drooping. He didn't want anything bad to happen to Rachel because of this.

"For now. It's a tricky condition and it can be caused by any number of things. It could last for hours or even months. We need to find out who he is. And I know that doesn't help Rachel, but if he does have family that can help…"

"Trust me, Rachel cares more about this guy living than any trouble that she's in. And if they try and count her for it, I'll quit. That'll get the board's attention."

"You'd really quit? That's very loyal."

"I'm going to go check on labs. Let me know if there's anything I missed."

Back up at The Oasis, Puck was walking around and walked up to one of the trucks. "Yo, yo, what's up Tony?"

"Hey, Doctor Puck. We've got a great special tonight. Check it out." Tony gestured to the blackboard with the special on it, declaring it the "Puck Special: MeatBALLless Sub."

"I see what you did there."

"You want my advice on your vasectomy?"

"Yeah, I was just too shy to ask." Puck said sarcastically. "Just a burger and fries, Tony, let's go."

"Hey Puck." Rachel said, coming up behind him.

"Hey. I hear you're having a crappy night. Still going crappy?"

"Man, you sure know what to say to a girl to cheer her up."

Puck put a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "It's a gift. Now, when the lawyers ask you if you'd do it again, the answer is no. Right?"

"Yeah. I probably could have handled that better." Rachel said as Puck rubbed her back.

"Doctor Rose!" Tony said, seeing Marley as he handed Puck his food.

"Can I get a coffee?" Rachel said, a little curt, handing over her money.

Marley stepped up behind Rachel. "I thought you might want to know I declared John Doe incompetent."

"Well, it wasn't rocket science." Rachel said, taking her coffee.

"I needed to examine him, Rachel."

"Yeah, okay." Rachel said as she started walking away.

"You wouldn't rubber stamp any diagnosis I gave you without checking." Marley said, following after her. "Look, I know I didn't handle this thing with Finn well. I should have said something to you."

Rachel nodded as she poured sugar into her coffee. "Yeah, you probably should have. Especially since you had a myriad of chances to tell me you were sleeping with my ex. And you could have told me before I set you up on the blind date, which, in retrospect, is totally bizarre that you went."

"I wanted to get to know you better. That's why I went. Anyway, Finn and I aren't that serious."

"Marley, what you and Finn do or don't do is not my concern." Rachel said, wiping up a spot where she spilled creamer.

"Now you're being dishonest." Marley said. Puck overheard this and turned his attention to the two of them.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh come on, you work in a hospital with your ex-boyfriend. You actively pursued to manage his shift all while your boyfriend lives in Dallas."

"Yeah, that's where Brody works."

"Rachel, this is Psych 101. You have no interest in really committing to Brody because you still have feelings for ex-boyfriend Finn."

"Finn isn't just an ex-boyfriend. He isn't some guy I dated for a little while and it just didn't work out."

"And I understand you have history…"

"You have no idea what we have. Finn was a wreck when he came home, he wasn't the man that you see today. I left my job, my friends, _everything_ so that I could come here and help him out. I sat by him through hell. So yeah, we have a history. And yes, I have feelings for him." Rachel said, glaring at Marley before she walked away.

Marley looked over at Puck, who tried to make it look like he wasn't eavesdropping on the conversation. "Fries?" he asked innocently as Marley's phone started to ring.

"No." She started walking away as she answered her phone. "Molly? Did you find John Doe's Christine?"

"YOOHOO!" Jesse said, appearing at The Oasis. He looked over at Puck. "Puck, this is my jam! This is my jam!"

Back at the accident, Kurt and Harvey finally made it out of the danger zone. "Doc?"

"I'm here Charlie." Kurt said.

"I-I c-c-can't go anymore. Hurts too much. Put me down."

"Alright Harvey, let's put him down for a little bit." They put his stretcher down and Kurt looked at the wound. "Hey, you're looking great, man. You look spectacular."

"You…serious? I give up."

"I need you to keep fighting. You understand me? You keep fighting Charlie." Kurt and Harvey went to pick the stretcher back up, but Harvey dropped his and clutched at his shoulder.

Kurt went over to him. "Are you okay?"

"I think I will be."

"Good." Kurt leaned into him and whispered. "If we don't get him there in an hour, he's not going to make it. We have to keep him talking and keep him distracted." Kurt walked back to the front of the stretcher. "Up on three. One, two, three." Kurt said as they lifted the stretcher.

Back in John Doe's room, Finn was watching his heart monitor to make sure he wouldn't crash again like he did earlier. He heard the door open and saw Rachel sneak in. "Hey. You know I'm not supposed to be treating him, right?" Rachel asked.

"I need your brain. His vitals are wonky and I can't figure it out. The chest CT came back with nothing and now he's spiking a fever and not responding to antibiotics. I think the leg must be getting septic, but he's already on two antibiotics. I've added a third, I've resent the blood cultures…" Finn said, getting cut off by the machines beeping again.

"His fever is rising." Rachel said.

"And now look at his mouth. He's twitching. What the hell is going on?" Finn said.

Rachel thought for a second. "It could be meningitis. Or tetanus from the bullet."

"Maybe. Distonic reaction?"

"Yes." Rachel said.

Marley came into the room. "I just got off the phone with the woman who knows him. She says that he was fine three weeks ago so I think that his fugues state has to be connected to his worsening condition."

"In what way?"

"I'm not sure."

"Well, Marley, this is a medical issue. When you have some way you can really help us, let us know. Thanks." Rachel said, going back to the patient.

"Rachel, push a hundred and fifty milligrams of almuterol." Finn said.

"Charlie, if you could snap your fingers and be anywhere, where would you be, buddy?" Harvey asked as him and Kurt carried him to the medical tent. They were still in the midst of trying to distract him.

"I don't know."

"Yeah you do." Kurt said, encouraging him. "For you, I'm thinking Vegas with all the chickies, and a little booze."

"I'd be at the Gulf, catching marlins."

"Perfect." Kurt said. "Where would you be, Harvey?"

"That's easy. Miami Beach. Drinking margaritas with my wife by the pool, have my parents take the kids for a week, that'd be a vacation. What about you?"

"I love the old cities. Paris, Rome…just the history of them. Learning about them. Me and Blaine, we usually end up in Hawaii though."

"Blaine?"

"My brother." Kurt said quickly, trying to cover his tracks. "I usually vacation with my brother a lot. We're close."

Back at the hospital, Jesse was being called over the PA system. "Mr. St. James, report to records. Mr. St. James to records.

Jesse was not having any part of that, though. "This positivity." He walked around, talking to the Alamo actors. "Oh man, this is where it's at!" Jesse said, walking around the waiting room with his shirt untucked as he was still experiencing a high from the ecstasy tablets he took by accident from Marley's office. "I just feel really, really, really, really good." He got into one of the patient's faces.

"Sam told me that Jesse accidentally took some E." Mercedes said, filming the whole exchange on her phone. "He's just been rolling all night."

Puck let out a slight chuckle. "You should…you should really get back to work."

Mercedes' eyes widened slightly and she put her phone away. "Yeah. Right."

"I really see you." Jesse said, looking at one of the patients up close. "I see you!"

Puck chuckled to himself again as he pulled out his phone to tape what Jesse was doing. Just because he was an attending didn't mean he couldn't have a little fun. Especially since his normally uptight boss was _definitely_ not himself.

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!" Jesse said at the top of his lungs, causing Puck to burst out laughing.

Back in the room, Rachel and Finn were trying to figure out what was wrong with their patient. "John Doe's lumbar puncture and tendistider are negative."

"But his fever keeps going up." Finn said, looking at the iPad that had the patient information on it.

"And he keeps spasming." Rachel said, talking aloud to try and figure out what exactly was wrong with the guy. "What are we missing?"

"I've been asking myself for hours." He paused. "Maybe you shouldn't have jumped all over Marley."

"Is now really the time to talk about that?" Rachel asked with a slightly icy tone to her voice. She turned to look at Finn.

"I'm talking about saving John Doe. Look, we have no idea what's wrong with him. She was just trying to help."

"By throwing out theories?"

"Well, that is what we're doing." Finn said, reminding her. "Look, I know this has been a rough night for you. If you want to talk, I know you're with Brody and all, but you can come to me anytime. You know that right?"

"I'm fine." Rachel said, putting on a smile. "But you're right. It's just been a really tough night." She rolled her eyes slightly and started walking away. "I'm going to recheck his labs."

"How many times did you stick this guy?" Puck asked across the hospital where he was talking to Mercedes and Artie.

"Five…and a half." Artie said sheepishly.

"His vein keeps moving, it's…it's literally like trying to stick Jabba the Hutt." Mercedes said.

"Maybe after two tries, you come find me next time." Puck said, taking off his surgical gloves. "Especially after the night you've had, Artie. Let's hope he doesn't have a heart attack too." Puck walked into the patient's room. "Hello, sir, I'm Doctor Puckerman. Let's see if I can help you."

"These kids don't know they're doing." the patient said from his hospital bed.

"Well, your veins do present a challenge. Will you look over to the left and hold your breath, please?" Puck asked as he started to pull away the surgical towel resting on the guy's neck.

He started looking at something when the patient asked, "Are you the doctor getting his huevos snipped?" Puck gave Artie and Mercedes an annoyed look.

"I-I didn't say anything, I swear." Artie said.

"He didn't he blushes whenever anyone mentions balls." Mercedes said.

"Never get a vasectomy." the patient said. "I got snipped. Damn doctor said it would only hurt for a couple of days. Liar! Felt like someone put a blowtorch on my man parts. I could barely walk. And things were never the same in the bedroom, if you know what I mean."

"Um, that could have been caused by any number of things…" Puck started to say.

"Nope. I used to wake up every morning with a flag pole. Until I got the big V. Now I'm taking ED pills by the truckload, just to get a little movement. Ow."

"Sorry," Puck said as he stuck the guy with a needle.

"Over here!" Kurt yelled when they finally made it to the medical tent. "There was an accident. He needs a med evac; get the chopper here now." Kurt and Harvey put the stretcher on the ground and went over to talk to Charlie. "Charlie, you made it! You're going to be in the hospital in no time and I'll come and check on you."

"Thanks, doc. You should go for rangers, man." he said weakly. "They'd be lucky to have a guy like you."

Kurt gave him one nod. "Alright. Get him out of here."

Harvey came up behind Kurt. "I spoke to operations about Mike. They already got him. He had it easy."

"No doubt." Kurt said. "Get your shoulder looked at. You might need surgery."

"You know, Charlie can be an idiot. He's right about one thing though. You'd make a hell of a ranger. Pleasure serving with you, lieutenant."

Back at the hospital, Marley was leading someone down the hallways. "Doctor Berry." she said, stopping in front of Rachel. "This is Christine. She was John Doe – George's – girlfriend. He has bipolar disorder."

"Yeah, that's actually why we broke up. It just got really hard to deal with."

"I'm sorry, you said bipolar. Christine, was he on any kind of medication?"

"Well, he was, but he hated the side effects of it. So that's why he came to our church. To try a more holistic approach."

"Do you remember what kind the medicine was?" Rachel asked, the wheels in her brain spinning.

Christine turned and looked at Marley. "It was lithium."

"When did he go off it?"

"Maybe around a month ago?"

"I think I know what's wrong with George. Excuse me." Rachel said, running off to the trauma room. "Molly, get the pharmacy. Now."

"He's having a seizure." Finn said. "Grab the dilanta, now. And he's going into V-tech too."

"His pulse is dropping." Sam said, reading the heart rate machine.

Rachel came into the room with IV fluids. "He's bipolar. He stop taking lithium abruptly two weeks ago. When you don't slowly wean yourself off of mood stabilizers…"

"This is exactly what happens. Nice catch." Finn said.

"It wasn't me." Rachel said quietly.

"So his fugue state was connected to his condition." Marley said a little smugly. "I guess you did need a psychiatrist after all."

Rachel sighed as Marley walked out of the room. "I missed something juicy, didn't I?" Sam asked. Finn and Rachel both gave him a death glare.

Rachel walked towards Christine. "Look, I know you don't believe in medical treatment, but…"

"Actually, I do believe in it. I go to doctors if I need them, I just prefer to treat myself with prayer first. Thanks for saving George." Christine said. Rachel gave her a smile and left the room.

"Marley, wait, hold on a second. I'm sorry for jumping on you earlier. It was uncalled for. You helped save George and I couldn't have done it without you."

"Anything else?"

"Look, uh, this case really pushed my buttons. When I was fifteen, my dad contracted severe pneumonia. He needed antibiotics and eventually surgery. You know, it's very treatable. But he wouldn't do it. He just wanted to pray. And my mother agreed. So, I watched my dad die."

"I had no idea." Marley said. "And then you decided to be a doctor."

"Something like that. I am really, truly sorry for being such a bitch to you. And this isn't an excuse for my behavior, it's just an explanation."

"Well it's a damn good one." Marley said, a smile growing on her face. "You should have just told me that because it would have helped. I'm sorry too. About everything. I don't know that we'll ever be best friends, but I'd at least try and be work friends."

Rachel nodded and smiled. "Okay. I can live with that." She watched Marley walk off and sighed.

"Everything okay?" Finn asked, coming up to her. He started to file some paperwork.

Rachel looked up at him and smiled. "Yeah. Everything's fine. I just have a lot on my mind."

Finn looked at her. "Are you sure? I mean, I know this had to bring back some bad memories for you."

Rachel shrugged her shoulders. "I did what I had to do. I kind of wished it ended up differently. Or at least done it to where I didn't get caught."

Finn smiled at her and walked over to her. "Well, like I said earlier, if you need anything, I'm here if you want to talk."

Rachel sniffed and looked up at him. "Thanks, Finn." She closed the distance between the two of them and wrapped her arms around his midsection. "It was just a really rough night."

Finn looked uncomfortable for a second, then started smoothing down her hair, an action that Marley caught from around the corner where she was at. Marley watched the two of them and bit her lip. _Something_ was still going on between the two of them.

After the shift ended, Mercedes smiled when she saw Kurt come into the hospital. "Hey handsome. How was drill?"

"Uneventful. Have you seen Finn? I wanted to talk to him about that ranger recommendation."

"Wait, I thought you were leaning against becoming a ranger."

"I was." Kurt said. "I just think they need me." He started to walk away when Mercedes saw the staples on the back of his head.

"Hold up." She pulled his arm and yanked off his hat. "Uneventful, huh? I want to hear every detail, Lieutenant Badass."

"Whoa, that's nasty." Sam said, seeing the staples on Kurt's neck.

"Yeah, I figured I'd let Mercedes and Artie stitch it up, get some practice in. Nice and neat." he said, turning to Mercedes. "Speaking of, where is he? Artie?"

"Probably sulking. He got yelled at by Rachel tonight."

"That's how you know it alls learn." Sam said. "Come on, there's something we have to do." Sam said, making Mercedes gasp.

"Hey, Rachel!" Mercedes said, running up to her as Rachel was texting on her phone. "Better hurry up."

"Why?"

"It involve cake. That's all I'm saying." Mercedes said before she started to fast walk away.

A smile broke out on Rachel's face. They got a cake for her birthday. She turned the corner and bit her lip. "Guys, I can't believe you…" Her eyes landed on the cake. It was in the shape of two soccer balls. "Soccer balls?"

"Yeah. For Puck. It's in symbolic of his operation." Kurt said.

Rachel let out a little laugh and felt her heart sink. Of course this wasn't for her.

"Surprise!" All of the night shift doctors and nurses smiled as Puck walked down the hallway with Finn behind him.

"It's like a nightmare come true." Puck said, looking at the cake and the sign next to it that read _Adios, baby makers_. "Thank you, I think."

"Those are actual size, right?" Kurt asked jokingly.

"Puck, they're ready for you." Molly said to him.

"You sure you want to do this, buddy?" Finn asked.

"Yeah, yeah I am." Puck handed Finn his stethoscope.

"Dead man walking!" Sam called out to the whole hospital. Sam held his phone in the air as Amazing Grace started playing from the speakers. The staff lined up against the walls and saluted him as he walked down the hallway to the hospital room.

"That's nice. Thank you. So glad everybody's here. And nobody is with the patients. Fantastic. Back to work everyone."

"Rachel, I just got a call from legal. They wanted me to tell you the paramedic has changed his story. He says he can't swear that it was a do not treat bracelet and it could have been a fuel band or something like that."

"Why would he do that?" Rachel asked, completely confused.

"I could make a guess." Molly said, turning her attention to Finn, who was talking to Kurt. She turned back to Rachel, gave her a knowing look, and left the waiting room.

Rachel's phone started ringing and she went to answer it.

Marley was walking down the hallway when she saw Jesse leaning up against a wall. "How are you feeling?"

"Actually, I'm fine. It was enlightening."

"It can be." Marley said.

"You know, I never told anybody this, but I have some degenerative issues with my left eye."

"You do know how to keep a secret. How bad is it?"

"Partial blindness. The headaches are getting worse because of the blurred vision. I've been delaying getting corrective surgery."

"Why?"

"Fear. Now I think it's time I take care of it. I'm getting a divorce. I worked it out with my ex so that I can see my kids. It's a new chapter. I'm starting over."

"Well that's a healthy attitude." Marley said with a smile. "You're making progess."

"You care to talk about it over breakfast?"

"Ummm,"

"I'm not asking you out." Jesse said with a laugh. "Consider it punishment for not labeling your meds properly."

Marley smiled at him. "Alright. Let's do it."

Rachel walked out of the hospital. "Brody, it's so good to hear your voice. I just had the worst night ever. This guy came in and it was just…wait, what?" Rachel said. "What do you mean you want me to hang up?"

"Because the world's best boyfriend is standing right over here." Rachel heard Brody say. Only it wasn't over the phone.

Rachel's mouth dropped in shock and she let out a laugh when she turned around to see him. "You planned this whole thing, didn't you?" She ran over to him and threw her arms around him.

"Yes I did." Brody picked her up and kissed her.

"I missed you." Rachel said.

Brody smiled and handed her a cupcake with a candle in it. "Happy birthday, baby. Make a wish." Rachel smirked at him, swiped a pinkie across the cupcake and licked it before kissing him again.

Of course this was the moment Finn chose to walk out of the hospital to give Rachel a gift. He'd wrapped it himself, and while it wasn't the best wrapping job in the world, he knew Rachel would appreciate the sheer fact he managed to remember her birthday and get her something she'd really want.

"I knew someone would remember my birthday." Rachel said, linking hands with Brody.

Finn looked down at the present in his hand and walked the other way.

**Author's Note: Yeah, this scene broke my heart. Next up is my favorite episode from the show! Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Two: Storm Watch**

"Once again, we are recommending that everyone stays inside during this storm tonight." The staff members at San Antonio Memorial Hospital heard on the television as new patients started pouring into the hospital for treatment as the heavy rains started to pour.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky around the hospital and Rachel watched with a shocked look her face. Just seconds after the lightning flash, a loud thunderclap rang out. "That sounded incredibly close." Rachel said. "We need to be on guard tonight." Rachel said, directing the hospital.

"It's like our own little Sandy." one of the nurses commented.

"This guy was struck by lightning." A group of EMTs said, wheeling a guy into the emergency rooms. Finn immediately stepped up to take the patient into one of the exam rooms. "Artie, you're with me." Finn started rolling the guy to the room.

The two of them got the patient into a room and ripped his shirt off in order to treat him. "Whoa," Artie remarked, looking at the man's purple chest.

Finn, noticing Artie's expression, pointed at his chest. "That's what happens when people get struck by lightning. His capillaries will be like that for a few days. Until then, we give him medicine and we wait." Finn turned to one of the nurses and started telling her exactly the course of treatment he needed.

Meanwhile, in the hallways of the hospital, Kurt and Mercedes were walking around, discussing who's patient had it worse.

"See these marks in the x-ray?" Kurt said, holding up one of the x-ray films he was holding to the light. "That's teeth in his knuckles. What do you have?"

"I just pulled a Yankee candle out of someone's ass. I think I win."

"Hi Mercedes." Jacob Ben Israel, the MRI technician said, walking next to Mercedes and Kurt. "Since you're going into ortho, I thought I'd show you this really cool x-ray from earlier. Maybe we can sync up our breaks later and I can show it to you."

"Oh, you know, that sounds so cool, but I'm going to be really busy." Mercedes said as her and Kurt walked away. The two of them shared a look and Mercedes rolled her eyes. "Oh my god, I cannot take another day of Jacob following me around the hospital."

"You should just go out with him once. Then you'll be able to get anything you want when it comes to x-rays and MRIs." Kurt said.

Mercedes rolled her eyes again and the two of them made it to the front of the hospital, where they saw Jesse St. James walk in with Brody Weston to give him a tour of the hospital.

"Rumor has it that Jesse has offered Brody a job here at the hospital." Kurt said, whispering to Mercedes.

"I wonder what Rachel is going to think of that: having her ex-boyfriend and boyfriend working in the same hospital." Mercedes whispered back, hoping she'd be able to catch a snippet of their conversations.

"So, I think you'd make a great addition to the hospital." Jesse said to Brody when they stopped at the nurses' station. "I can see it now: Doctor Brody Weston, head of trauma surgery at San Antonio Memorial Hospital."

"It does have a nice ring to it. Rachel and I still have some things to figure out." Brody said as Rachel came out from one of the trauma rooms to join Brody and Jesse.

"What's not to love about it?" he asked, looking between the two of them. "If Brody comes here, you can stop the long distance thing, settle down, and pop out a few monkeys and boom, done." Jesse said before walking away to leave the couple to talk things over.

"You know, it would be nice to actually live in the same city as each other. And this would be a huge move for and I should probably make sure it's a move I want to make." Brody said to Rachel as they started walking to one of the break rooms that was being set up with extra coffee.

"I know, it would be nice, especially when it comes to planning the wedding and deciding who was going to move where. But the last time I lived with a guy…" Rachel started to say before Brody interrupted her.

"It didn't end well." Brody said. "I know it didn't end well, but I'm not that guy. This is going to work out."

"No, you're definitely not that guy" Rachel said..

The door to the break room opened and Puck walked in, finally back to work after getting his vasectomy. Rachel turned towards him and gave him a sympathetic smile. "Puck, you remember, Brody, my boyfriend. Brody, this is Noah Puckerman, but you can call him Puck. Take pity on him, he just had a vasectomy."

Puck made a face at Rachel then turned to Brody. "Don't ever let a woman dictate whether or not you can reproduce."

"Puck, my man, I feel your pain. No man should ever have to go through what you're feeling right now." Brody said, taking sympathy on his potential future coworker.

"Yeah, I can definitely tell you feel sorry for me with the laughter in your voice. Ball pain is only funny when it isn't your own." Puck said, limping out of the break room.

"Rachel, Puck, one of the nurses is about to make an announcement." Jesse said, coming into the break room. "Brody, why don't you go with them and start to get a lay of the land of the hospital."

The four of them walked out of the break room and into the lobby of the hospital, where more patients were already starting to pile up.

"It appears that there's been an accident at one of the trailer parks around town. Emergency vehicles were on their way to the site, but got in an accident."

"I'll go." Finn said, coming out from one of the trauma rooms. "Which trailer park is it?"

"It's the one off of the highway. But be careful: the storm is already starting to knock out power in places and it's getting dicey out there."

"I'll go with you." Puck said, walking over to where Finn was standing.

"No can do, man. You and your crushed up man tonsils are just going to have to stay here." Finn said.

"Again with the sensitivity." Puck said, rolling his eyes.

Rachel nodded and turned to her left to see Marley standing next to her. "Hey, Marley, have you gotten to meet my boyfriend, Brody?"

"No, I haven't." She stuck out her hand to shake with Brody's. "Marley Rose, the night shift's psychologist. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." Brody said, looking around the waiting room. "Maybe I should go out to the trailer park with Finn. After all, it would be nice to get to know one of my potential coworkers. And I did do search and rescue for the last five years."

"That is an absolute great idea." Jesse said, overhearing their conversation. "Attention everyone, as of this moment, Brody Weston officially has privileges here at San Antonio Memorial."

Finn gave a loathing look at Brody and sighed. He was not thrilled about the tagalong. "Fine. But you better keep up and don't get in my way." He grabbed a medical bag off the counter of the nurses' station and left the hospital, Brody following behind him.

Brody watched him as he started to walk off. "You know, I could say the same thing to you."

Puck came up behind Rachel and smiled at her. "Well, would you look at that. It's your past and future right before your eyes."

Rachel turned towards Puck and glared at him. "Shut up or I'll punch you in the nuts."

"Repent or I will bring wrath upon you sinners!" The remaining night shift staff turned to face a newcomer to the hospital.

"Great, this is just what we needed." Rachel muttered to herself, taking a patient's chart from the nurses' station. "Puck, I told you, no surgery." Rachel said, catching Puck trying to sneak into one of the OR rooms.

Puck quietly swore to himself and started limping back to the nurses' station, earning a stern glare from Rachel before she left to go check on a patient.

Sam chuckled at Puck's misfortune and wrote a note on one of the patient's charts. "Really? Did you really think you'd be able to sneak past Rachel? It's like she has eyes all over this hospital."

Puck shrugged. "Thought I'd try my best. I was going crazy at home, and I need some form of semblance to my regular life or I'm going to go crazy."

"What, you couldn't get Quinn to push you around in a wheelchair while you were home?" Sam asked, putting the chart back in its spot.

"Are you kidding me? She's gain seventy pounds and is constantly complaining about how much the twins are kicking her. I'm not getting much sympathy on her end."

"Did Beth help take care of you while you were home?"

"No, they had a girls weekend up at her mom's. I tend to be a cranky patient." Puck said.

Across town, Finn and Brody were arriving to the scene of the tornado wreckage. Brody surveyed the damage while Finn went to talk to one of the firefighters to find out which of the trailers needed the most attention first.

"Luckily, most people were evacuated before the storm hit." The firefighter led the two of them to a trailer. "This one has a woman, around forty, still inside. Think you can get her out?"

"I know we can." Finn said, taking off for the trailer, Brody not far behind him.

"What's your plan to get her out of the trailer?" Brody asked.

"I'm not really one for a plan. I'm more of a go with the flow type of guy." Finn said, looking around the trailer for the best way to get in. Noticing a window that was partially broken, Finn threw his medical bag at the window to break it the rest of the way so they could get in.

"Was that really a good idea?" Brody asked as Finn started to climb through the broken window.

Finn paused from climbing and shot a look at Brody. "You got a better way to do this?" Brody rolled his eyes and shrugged. "That's what I thought." Finn climbed through the window and surveyed the inside of the trailer, trying to find the woman who was still inside.

He heard something drop and turned around to see a vase that was now lying in pieces on the floor. He went over to investigate and noticed a limp hand by the shards of glass. Finn bent down and saw a woman, struggling to breathe.

"Ma'am, I'm Finn Hudson, and I'm a doctor at San Antonio Memorial Hospital. I'm going to get you out of here and get you to the hospital." Finn reached into the medical bag to pull out the portable oxygen mask and tried to put it on her, but each time he did, she slapped his hand away.

"M-m-m-s-n." She coughed and tried again. "My…s-n."

"Your s…you have a son?" Finn asked, trying to look around the trailer for where he could be.

Still unable to speak clearly, she pointed over to a chest of drawers. Finn followed her finger and turned back to her. "In one of the drawers?" Finn asked. She nodded, finally accepting the oxygen mask from Finn.

"Next time, Finn, look for a better way to get into a trailer." Brody said, finally climbing through the window. He looked around and saw the woman still laying on the ground. "You know, in order to treat her, you have to get her out of here."

Finn tried to fight rolling his eyes. "I know that; I'm not an idiot. She said she has a son in those drawers right by you. If you can get him out, I'll get her to the ambulance."

Brody nodded and turned to the chest of drawers. He pulled out the top one and saw the woman's son in there. "It's okay, buddy. We're going to get you out of here and to the hospital." Brody hoisted him out, swung him over his shoulder, and made his way back to the ambulance.

Finn turned back to the woman. "We found your son. Now it's time to get you to the hospital."

Back at the hospital, it was pure chaos as patients are continually being brought in and family members are crowding the waiting rooms to make sure everything is going to be okay.

The lights started to flicker before going out completely, plunging the whole emergency room into darkness. "Son of a bitch!" Jesse said from where he was trying to do work.

Rachel, sensing that people were about to freak out, stepped out from behind the nurses' station. "Everyone, do not panic. The storm knocked out power, but we have four backup generators. I guarantee the lights will come back on in three, two, one." Rachel said, gesturing up to the lights and they came back on. She smiled and walked back to the nurses' station to grab patient charts.

"We only have two generators." Jesse said, a slightly sheepish look on his face. "Budget cuts."

Rachel paused to look at him and shook her head. "Wonderful. You need to make sure we can move the generators so they don't flood." Rachel gave Jesse a look and went off to see a patient.

"Excuse me," a man with a knife sticking out of his shoulder said, stopping Rachel before she could go to the patient's room. "I need to see Marley Rose."

Rachel looked up from the chart she was looking at and gasped. "Sir, you have a knife in your shoulder." She led him to a trauma room and sat him down.

"I need to speak with Marley Rose." the man repeated.

"Okay, I'll page her. But right now we need to get this knife out of your shoulder." Rachel saw Puck walking by. "Stay right here, sir." She went to the door and beckoned him. "Hey, I need your help in here."

"Sorry, Rachel. You said I'm not allowed to do any surgery today. Remember that?"

She groaned. "This isn't a surgery. There's a guy in there with a knife sticking out of his shoulder. He keeps asking for Marley, and I can't do both at the same time. So I need you to pull the knife out while I track her down."

"He's got a knife in his shoulder! That is so cool!" Puck said, going into the trauma room.

"Glad to know that's the only part that stuck." Rachel said, shaking her head to go try and find Marley.

"So, I hear you have a knife in your shoulder." Puck said, going into the trauma room. "I'm Doctor Puckerman, and I'm going to try and get that out for you." Puck beckoned one of the nurse's into the room. "What's going to happen is that the nurse here is going to grip your shoulder, and I'm going to pull the knife out and bandage you up."

"What's a job like this pay?" the man asked, looking up at the nurse. "Why don't you answer me, sweet thing?"

"Okay, you are being really inappropriate." Puck said, deciding this was going to be the best time to pull the knife out since he was distracted. The patient let out a low scream and glared at Puck.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the door opened and Marley appeared, her eyes instantly narrowing. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Wait, you know him?" Puck asked, hearing his cell phone go off from his pocket.

"We've known each other for awhile. I'm her Daddy."

Puck pulled his phone out and saw it was his wife, Quinn, calling him. "Well, I have to take this phone call and it looks like the two of you have a lot to sort out." He put the knife on the table as the nurse bandaged Marley's father up. He stepped out of the room and slid his phone across to answer it. "Quinn, honey, what's going on?"

"Puck, oh god, I got in an accident…"

"What do you mean you got in an accident? Why the hell are you out in this storm?"

"Puck, the babies…" Quinn started screaming and Puck had to hold the phone away from his ear. "Quinn, listen to me, I need you to put Beth on the phone."

"Daddy, I'm scared." Puck heard Beth say.

"I know, I know you are. It's a really scary thing. Beth, I need you to tell me everything that is going on with your mom."

"It's really wet."

"How wet, honey?" Puck asked, already heading towards the exit of the hospital.

"Puck, where do you think you're going?" Jesse asked. "The hospital is incredibly understaffed. We need all hands on deck."

"My wife and daughter were in an accident. She's in labor." Puck yelled back, not even bothering to turn around.

A little after Puck left, Finn and Brody got back to the hospital with the mother and son. "Artie!" Finn called, gesturing over to him. "This is Bernie. We need you to keep an eye on him while we work on his mother." Finn said, already taking off towards the operating room with Brody.

Artie sighed. He wanted to see some of the cases that were coming into the hospital and help assist on them, not be stuck babysitting a kid for the night.

"You know, I've never worked in a hospital where the ER docs actually do surgery with the surgeons." Brody commented as they finished scrubbing in to try and save the mother.

"Oh really? Because if you decide to work here, it'll happen a lot." Finn walked into the operating room with Brody close behind him.

"Here's what we're going to do." Brody said, as he started to detail off what was going to happen in surgery. When he finished, he looked over and saw Finn shaking his head. "What, you got a better plan, Hudson?"

"Yeah, actually, I do." Finn stepped around Brody, took a scalpel and started working on their patient. "You can save about ten minutes if you cut out the first three steps of your plan."

"But that's just to make sure there isn't something else wrong—" Brody started to say, getting cut off by Rachel opening the door to the operating room.

"Finn, we need you down in the emergency room. We've got patients needing examined and Puck just left—"

"Is he okay?" Finn asked, getting worried about his best friend.

"Quinn's in labor." Rachel said. "She called him and said she was in accident and she's in labor. So Puck left to make sure she's okay."

Finn nodded and stepped away from the surgery. "Really, Brody. Do it my way and it'll take less time and won't be as bad of a recovery for her."

Meanwhile, Puck got to the site of the accident that Beth said they were at. "Beth, honey, I need you to honk the car horn for me. That way I'll be able to find you and your mom."

"Hold on, Daddy." Beth said. She moved to the front seat of the car and started honking the horn. Puck looked around, trying to figure out which direction the honking was coming from.

Back at the hospital, Kurt and Mercedes are talking about one of their patients, trying to figure out the best way to save him. Kurt looked up and saw Head Nurse Molly walking down the hallway with a determined look on her face. "Oh dear God, not now." Kurt said, trying to find a way to avoid talking to her.

"What's going on?" Mercedes asked. "Since when do you not like Molly?"

"She's been trying to set me up with her niece. Obviously that isn't going to work."

Mercedes bit her lip. "Just kiss me." Mercedes said, quickly closing the distance between the two of them.

When they broke apart the hospital staff was completely silent. Mercedes turned to Kurt with a smile. "There. That should help you." She patted his shoulder and walked off.

Kurt turned around when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. He saw it was Molly and he was sure he had a sheepish look on his face.

"You could have told me you were seeing someone." She held up a finger in his face. "I like Mercedes so you better not screw this up." Molly gave him a small smile and walked away.

Molly walked over to where Marley was talking with a patient. "Excuse me, Marley. Your father isn't leaving until you talk to him."

Marley smiled at her patient. "Would you excuse me for a moment?"

"Of course, Doctor Rose." The patient smiled at Marley, and Marley smiled back. Her smile quickly faded when she went into the trauma room to talk to her father.

"What do you want? There are people out there who need me and this is taking up too much time." Marley crossed her arms and her eyes narrowed.

"I need money. I fell in with the wrong people. I need five thousand."

Marley let out an incredulous laugh. "I don't have five thousand dollars. I can give you only one-fifty."

"No, that's not going to help at all. Besides, your clothes say that you have that type of money."

"Dad, I am two hundred thousand dollars in debt from medical school and paying for Juliet and Daniel's private school education, something _you_ should be doing."

"Marley, I didn't want to scare you earlier, but if I don't get the money, they're going to hurt your mother."

Marley's face hardened. " Are you serious right now?" She rolled her eyes and turned around, seeing the people in the waiting room were trying to listen in on the conversation. She stepped out of the room and looked around. "Do you need me to repeat what I said, or should we all get back to work?" She stormed off, not bothering to go back to the patient she was with earlier.

"Hey little man, how are you doing?" Artie asked Bernie, who was sitting in one of the chairs, sorting triage tags.

"I want my mom."

Artie sighed and sat down next to him. "I know you do. But we're working on making sure that she's going to be okay. You'd rather see your mom once she's been healed by the doctors, right?"

He nodded. "I guess so."

Artie smiled. "Great." He pulled out his cell phone. "And in the mean time, here's my phone. You can play any game you want on it."

"Thanks!" Bernie said.

Artie raised his hand up. "Alright, man, give me five!" Bernie raised his arm up and winced in pain.

"You okay?" Artie asked, moving closer to him to check out his arm. "You don't have any bruising. Just the small cut on your back…oh no." Artie got up. "Come on, Bernie, let's get you to a more comfortable place."

Marley made it back to her office before completely breaking down into tears. She wasn't able to handle much more from this night, and the news of something possibly happening to her mother was the icing on a really crappy day.

"Hey, are you okay?" Finn asked, knocking slightly on her door.

Marley sniffed and nodded her head. "Yeah, I'm fine. At least, I will be in a little bit." She wiped her eyes a little bit. "Actually, I needed to talk to you about something. It's about you and Rachel."

"Me and Rachel? Where's this coming from?" Finn asked, raising an eyebrow. "You know Rachel and I are just friends. She has that idiot Brody and I have you."

Marley waved away what he just said. "Look, I don't know what's going on between you and Rachel but I don't want to be in the middle of it anymore. You and Rachel are like the poster children for unresolved feelings. So, I'm going to take myself out of the equation." She walked over to where Finn was standing, slightly pushed him out of the way, and slammed the door.

Back at the massive car accident, Puck finally found Quinn's car that was now completely smashed in the front. He pulled open one of the backseat doors.

"Oh, Puck, it's happening!" Quinn said, panting.

Puck turned towards Beth. "Honey, take your hair out of its ponytail and tie back your mom's hair. We're going to have to deliver the babies here."

"No, it's not safe…" Quinn said, doubling over from the pain. "We have to get to the hospital."

"Quinn, we don't have time for that. The first baby is already crowning. We have to do this hear. So next contraction, you're going to push, got it?" Puck asked. Quinn nodded and he kissed her forehead. Puck turned to Beth. "Beth, I need you to hold your mom's hand really tight and squeeze it. Can you do that for me and mom?"

Beth nodded quickly. "I'll try."

"Perfect, Beth. Get ready." Puck said. He turned back to Quinn. "Get ready, Quinn. It's about to happen again."

Quinn nodded and her face contorted in pain. "AHHHHHH!" Her eyes shut together as she pushed. She leaned back against the car seat and breathed in heavily. "How's it going?"

"You're doing great, Q. I can see the head. She's blonde, just like you and Beth."

Quinn gave Puck a small smile before her face contorted again. "Oh god, it's happening again."

"Come on, Mommy!" Beth said, squeezing Quinn's hand. Quinn let out another scream and pushed the rest of the baby out.

Puck turned his attention back to Beth. "Okay now, honey, I need you to find something to wrap the baby with. Do you have a blanket or something we can wrap her up in?"

Beth looked around the car and saw one of her sweatshirts thrown on the floor of the car. She picked it up and handed it to Puck.

"No, what I need you to do is to completely unfold it for me so I can put your sister in there. Can you do that for me, Beth?" Puck asked. Beth nodded and unfolded the sweatshirt. Puck quickly swaddled her and handed her to Beth. "You wanna hold your sister while I get your other one out?"

Beth nodded again and looked down at Quinn and the other baby that was trying to come out. "Daddy, what is that?" Beth asked, her eyes widening.

"Oh my God, what's going on?" Quinn asked, getting nervous based on what Beth had just said.

"It's…" Puck started to say, "It's the baby's foot. She's breeched." Puck fished around in his pocket for his phone. "Beth, I need you to take my phone and run around outside to find a tower. When you find one, call Uncle Finn and tell him we need help getting to the hospital."

Back at the hospital, they were dealing with another influx of patients when the lights went out again. "Everyone calm down, this has happened once already today. The lights will come back on in just a few seconds." Rachel said, waiting a good minute for the lights to come back on.

But of course, nothing was going right and the lights stayed off.

Rachel walked over to where Jesse was looking over paperwork at the nurses' station. "I thought the generators were getting moved." she said through gritted teeth.

"Well, sorry, Rachel, maintenance must have forgotten. I've been busy dealing with paperwork all night. Do you realize how much this is going to cost us?"

Rachel started incredulously at Jesse. "Jesse, there are people out there who are dying and need medical attention. We are one of the only hospitals in the area, and we don't have any power. Do you see how this is a problem for us?"

He sighed and looked up from the paperwork. "So what am I supposed to do?"

Kurt, overhearing that there was some tension brewing between the two bosses, stepped in with a possible solution. "I can get some of the guys from my army reserve team in here. They can help treat the lesser injured patients to the hospital."

Rachel smiled at Kurt. "That's a great idea, Kurt. Alright everyone," Rachel said, turning her attention to the staff that was at the nurses' station. "We're going to need all hands on deck for this." She looked to her right and saw Marley walking by. "Marley, is there any chance you can help with triage or with stitches?"

Marley bit her lip. "I haven't done stitches since medical school. I guess I can try." Marley looked around the nurses' station. "And you do know that Jesse has some nurses' training, right?"

Rachel gave Jesse a bemused look. "No I didn't. So now it looks like we've found something more important than that paperwork." Rachel said. "Oh, Artie, your patient's blood panels are back. There's a high level of toxins, which means his kidneys aren't working. Good catch. I'm a little back logged right now, but see if Finn can help come up with something for dialysis."

Finn stopped, hearing his name being called. "What am I doing?"

"You're going to help Artie set up dialysis for the kid you and Brody brought in." Rachel said, grabbing a chart before going to the patient's room.

"I think I have something that will help us out." Finn said, leading Artie down a hallway. He grabbed one of the ladders that was propped up against the wall, and opened it up next to the emergency lights. "What we're going to do is take the batteries out of the lights here and put them in the dialysis machine. While you do that, I'm going to run to the third floor break room and get batteries to replace the lights. If that doesn't work, page Doctor Vega. He'll know what to do next." Finn heard his cell phone start ringing and saw it was Puck calling. "On second thought, just page Vega now." He stepped out of the room and answered his phone. "Puck, how's everything going?"

"Uncle Finn, can you hear me? I only have one bar." Beth said.

"Hey, sweetie. How's your mom and the babies doing?"

"Daddy said one of them is beached and he said to call you."

"Beached?" Finn repeated, trying to understand what the five year old was talking about. "You mean breeched? Okay, I need you to open the GPS on the phone and text me where you are right now. I'll send someone out to make sure you're okay." Finn said, hanging up the phone before dialing again to make another phone call. "Hey, it's Finn. Yes, I know there aren't any games tonight. Listen, I need you to do me a huge favor." He started walking off to a different spot in the hospital.

Meanwhile, the hospital waiting room had been transformed into a room where minor injuries were being treated, with Rachel keeping a watchful eye over everything that was happening.

She walked up behind Marley to watch her stitch a gash on an arm. "Make sure you do the sutures a little tighter. But otherwise, you're doing just fine." Rachel said, giving her a smile before walking over to where Jesse was bandaging an arm. "Make it tighter. The more pressure the bandage gives now, the better off he'll be in a few hours." Rachel said.

"You know, I'm finally starting to feel alive again after helping this patient." Jesse said before Rachel started walking away.

"That's good, Jesse." She smiled. "Maybe now you won't be as much of a tight ass anymore."

Finn hung up the phone and ran straight into Brody. "Hey, Hudson, I've been looking all over for you." Brody pursed his lips and gave Finn a cold stare. "So, I just wanted you to know that I decided to take the job. I'm coming here to San Antonio."

Finn stared blankly at him for a few moments. "You know, you're actually supposed to tell that to Jesse, not to me." Finn said as he started walking off to help with Puck and Quinn's arrival to the hospital.

"No, I'm telling you, because you need to know that things are going to change around here."

Finn stopped and turned to face Brody again. "Is that so?" he asked, turning back around to start walking towards the entrance of the hospital.

In Marley's office, she was on the phone, talking with someone with tears streaming down her face. "Mom, you have to get out of there. With everything that Dad has gotten himself into…it's not safe for you, for Juliet, or for Daniel. How about after my shift, I drive by the apartment and get the three of you, and you can stay with me until we get you all back on your feet."

"Marley, you know I can't leave your father."

"But, Mom, it's too dangerous for you to be with him."

"Honey, I'm sorry but I can't do it."

"Then I'm going to have to cut ties with Dad. And I know what that means. I know that it means I won't get to see you anymore, and I'm sorry about that, Mom, but it's a risk I'm going to have to take." Marley hung up the phone, unable to contain the sobs that went through her whole body.

At the same time, Jesse was walking the halls, since the chaos downstairs was finally dying off, trying to see if there was anything else that could be done to improve how the shift was going. He stopped outside of Marley's office and saw her with her head in her hands.

"Hey, are you feeling okay? You seem a little off." Jesse said.

She sniffed and shook her head. "My father was in here tonight and he owes someone five thousand dollars and I just don't have the money to give him." She started crying, unable to stop once the tears started flowing. "And if he doesn't get the money, the other people are going to do something to my mother, and I can't cut ties with my dad because then I won't get to see my mother. I just don't know what to do."

Jesse walked over to her and started rubbing her arm. "I'll loan you the money. And if you don't pay me back, I'll have to garner your wages." Jesse said. He saw the look of panic on Marley's face. "That was a joke. Sorry. But, Marley, I'll loan you the money."

"It's too much to ask for…"

Jesse gave Marley one of his only genuine smiles of the day. "It's not at all too much to ask. I'm completely willing to do it."

Marley sniffed and wiped away the tears that were falling. "Thank you. No one's ever really done this for me." She gave him a small smile and started walking away.

"Maybe you need to start hanging out with different people." Jesse said, watching her walk away.

Fifteen minutes later, a silver pickup truck carrying Puck, Quinn, Beth, and the baby pulled up in the front of the hospital where Finn had been waiting for them to arrive. "You owe me another four hundred." The guy who drove Puck and Quinn to the hospital shot a surly glance at Finn. "On top of the three thousand."

"I'm working on it, buddy." Finn said, opening the side of the truck to get Puck, Quinn, Beth, and the new baby out. One of the nurses put a wheelchair underneath Quinn and she sank down into it.

"I just got off the phone with the OB." Rachel said when Quinn and Puck got into the hospital. One of the nurses took the already born baby girl and took her away to get weighed and measured. "It's going to be another half hour until she gets here."

"We don't have that time, Rachel." Puck snapped, squeezing Quinn's hand as she had another contraction.

Finn and Rachel shared a look. "Then we're just going to have deliver her." Finn said, wheeling Quinn towards a room.

Rachel started to follow them, then turned towards Beth. "Hey, Beth. Do you remember me?" Rachel remembered the day that Beth was born, because she was the only one who was there as Finn and Puck decided to go on a "man's weekend trip" to Vegas and refused to answer their phones.

"You're Aunt Rachel." Beth said, looking up at her with a smile on her face. "Why don't you come to dinner with Uncle Finn anymore?"

Rachel gave her a soft smile. "I don't really know."

"Then you should change that." Beth said, turning to look at where they were wheeling Quinn. "Can I go with Mommy?"

Rachel sighed and held out her hand for Beth to take. "I'll tell you what. How about you wait outside of your mom's room while we deliver your new little sister. And once she's born, either me or Uncle Finn will come get you so you can meet her too."

Beth's eyes lit up. "Really?"

Rachel nodded. "Absolutely. It's not every day someone gets to be a big sister. But we should hurry so you don't miss the big moment." Beth took Rachel's hand and they started walking down the hallway together.

"Finn," Quinn breathed, trying to focus on his face. "If you say one word about my…"

"I'll never get invited to dinner again." Finn said, reaching inside of Quinn to try and turn the baby around. After a few misses, he's finally able to do it right as Rachel comes into the room.

"Beth is waiting outside. She can't wait to meet her other little sister." Rachel said, going over to take Finn's spot. "Finn, go take Quinn's other hand. I'm going to be here." Rachel smiled at Quinn. "Ready to meet your third daughter?"

Quinn looked completely exhausted but nodded her head once. "Let's do this."

Rachel smiled. "Alright, it looks like Finn got the baby in place, so now when the next contraction starts, we're going to have you push."

Quinn let out a terrifying scream and started to push the baby out. And just a few minutes later, another Puckerman baby was in the world.

Rachel held her in her arms, and Finn came over to stand next to Rachel, looking over her shoulder at the baby.

"Quinn, she's beautiful." Rachel said, feeling the tears start to fall.

"Puck, you and Quinn finally have a child that isn't blonde." Finn said. He looked down at Rachel holding the baby and suddenly saw the four of them in a hospital room again in the future. Only this time, it wasn't Puck and Quinn who were parents.

It was him and Rachel.

Rachel turned towards Finn and handed him the baby. "Here. I'm sure Puck and Quinn don't mind if you hold the baby for a little bit before they get to." The two of them looked over at Puck and Quinn and smiled. Quinn had collapsed against Puck's chest, and he held her close.

"I think you're right." Finn whispered, accepting the baby from Rachel. He looked into their daughter's eyes. "Hi there little one. I'm your Uncle Finn, and I'm going to teach you so many things." Finn looked up and saw everyone was staring at him. Finn walked towards Puck and Quinn, handing her their daughter. "But this one is going to teach you the most."

Puck turned to look at Finn with tears in his eyes (and honestly, Finn wasn't ashamed to admit he had the same tears in his eyes). "I love you, brother." Puck said, engulfing Finn in a hug.

"Right back at you, buddy." Finn said, patting him on the back a few times.

In one of the patient rooms, Artie was waiting for Bernie to wake up from his successful round of dialysis. He smiled when he started to wake up. "My body feels funny."

Artie kneeled next to Bernie's bed. "I know it does. But your body would be feeling a lot more funny if I didn't realize your shoulder was hurting. You should feel better in a few hours. Until then, you get to stay here in the hospital. And I figure you could use a roommate." Artie said as he pulled back the curtain next to Bernie's bed, revealing his mother laying in the next bed over.

"Mom!" Bernie said, feeling relieved that his mother was okay.

She took off her oxygen mask and smiled at him. "I'm so glad that you're okay."

Artie smiled at the two of them. "I'll let the two of you have some time alone to catch up." Artie said, walking towards the door.

"Artie, wait!" Bernie said, making Artie turn back around. "Thank you. For everything that you did for me."

Artie gave him a small smile. "You are welcome, little man."

Finn and Rachel started walking the halls of the hospital together to let the Puckerman family enjoy their time together.

"I think tonight was needed." Rachel said, giving Finn a smile. "I feel like…the closure's finally here. Even after all these years."

Finn looked at Rachel with an unreadable expression. "You haven't…gotten closure yet?"

"I mean, I thought I did. And then I found out about you and Marley and…I don't know. Something just came over me. But I'm really happy for the two of you. And Brody's here, so there's that." Rachel tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Anyway, speaking of Brody, I should try and find him."

"Actually, Rach, there was something I wanted to give you. Just, hold on one second." He went into the supply closest they were by, and Rachel crinkled an eyebrow, totally confused about what was happening. He reappeared a few seconds later with a wrapped present in his hands. "This is for you. Happy belated birthday."

"Finn…you didn't have to get me anything."

"I wanted to. You deserve it. So just open it."

Rachel opened it and gasped. It looked like an ordinary jewelry box, but she knew it was so much more than that. "Finn, where did you get this?"

"Well, I remembered that you said your grandmother had one like it. And I saw it a few weeks ago when I was visiting my mother. She had to do some antique shopping, and I saw it and instantly thought of you."

"Finn, this is wonderful." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Finn's cheek. "You have no idea how much this means to me." She looked confused for a second. "Why did you hide it in the supply closet?"

"Oh, well, I didn't want anyone to see it in my locker and have someone tell Marley. I didn't want her to think this was for her."

"Oh. Why didn't you give it to me on my birthday?"

Finn smiled at her. "I was going to give it to you after your rough shift last week, especially since it _was_ your birthday, but I couldn't find you after Puck's little surprise party."

Rachel looked up at him with a weird look on her face. "I saw you, you know. When I was with Brody after the shift. I was…I was going to go over and talk to you, but you walked away." Rachel stepped closer to Finn. "You should have stayed."

He looked in her eyes. "You know, Marley and I broke up." Finn said, leaning down to kiss her.

Rachel took a step back. "We should keep walking. Besides, I really do need to find Brody." Rachel said, taking off towards the locker rooms. Finn ran a hand through his hair, let out a silent sight, and followed her.

Back in the waiting room of the hospital, one of the nurses turned the TV channel to the news station. "Thirteen dead and scores injured in the worst storm this area has seen in a decade. Now crews are finally able to get to the parts of town that needs tending to…" Kurt heard the newscaster say on the television that was above the nurses' station. He wasn't actually paying attention to what was going on. Instead, he stared at the screen of his phone with a somber expression on his face. He heard Mercedes sigh as she walked up and sat down next to him. "Hi honey. How was your day?" she asked, leaning her head on his shoulder.

He held the phone closer to Mercedes. "I got this text from Blaine." Instantly, Mercedes' face lit up as she took Kurt's phone away from him to read the message.

She read it and smiled. "Oh my God, Kurt. He's coming home?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he made it out of there and he's coming home!" Kurt couldn't help the tears that had started to form in his eyes. Mercedes playfully smacked his knee and leaned in for a hug. "He survived Afghanistan." Kurt said into her shoulder.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Finn followed Rachel into the locker rooms, still trying to figure out what was going on between the two of them. "There's just something about delivering a baby, huh?" Rachel said, going over to open her locker. She was clearly starting a new topic of conversation to get their previous one out of her mind.

"I know right." Finn said, going to open his locker. "It never gets old. Plus now I can tell Quinn I've had my hands inside her until the day she dies."

Rachel peeked around the corner of the lockers and started laughing. "What is wrong with you?" She went back to looking inside her locker and took her hair out of her ponytail. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to restart the conversation from before. "Hey, uh, so you know Brody's coming here, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he made sure to tell me." Finn took his backpack out from his locker and set it on the floor.

Rachel started to shut her locker and started walking towards Finn. "Look, I know it's going to change things and I know it's going to be weird for awhile, but—"

Finn held up his hand and cut her off. "Hey, whatever. Right?"

"No, _no_ what I'm trying to say to you is that in the past few months that I've been working with you, I feel like we're getting back to being friends again and I like that. That's what I was trying to say earlier."

"We were always friends. Well, you were always my friend." He took a breath and ran a hand through his hair. "I wasn't the best there for awhile."

"No, Finn, you had some things that were beyond your control."

"But still," Finn took both of Rachel's hands into his. "I'm sorry that I messed things up between us."

Rachel nodded and looked into his eyes. "Yeah, me too."

"Yeah, come here." Finn said, pulling her closer to him in a passionate kiss. His hand moved up her neck and he pulled her closer as Rachel's grip on the back of his head tightened to keep him in the same position. The two of them backed up against the lockers and kept kissing.

Rachel broke apart from the kiss and gave Finn a soft smile, fully prepared to kiss him again.

"Hey, Rachel," Sam said, coming into the locker room. When he saw what he had just interrupted between Finn and Rachel, he had a shocked expression on his face. "Oh, um, Br-Brody was looking for you…so…"

Rachel let out a puff of air. She tucked part of her hair behind her ear and turned to face Sam. "Yeah, okay."

Sam looked like he was going to say something to the two of them, but clearly thought better of it and turned to leave the locker room.

"Oh wow." Rachel said, adjusting her scrubs top before leaving the locker room without a glance back at Finn. Finn watched her leave and leaned back against the lockers, letting out a deep breath of air.

Back at the nurses' station, Jesse was coming out of his office to talk to the doctors and nurses of the night shift. "Okay, listen up everybody." He started clapping his hands to get people's attention. He walked to the center of the nurses' station to stand next to Brody. "Wow. I have to thank you guys for a great night."

Rachel walked across the hall and stood next to where Brody and Jesse were.

"You did a bang up job," Jesse continued. "But now, I'd like to introduce to you, the newest head of trauma surgery, Doctor Brody Weston!" Everyone started clapping and cheering for him. "Whoa, and look at this!" Jesse said, pulling Rachel closer to him and Brody. "We have the prom king and queen power couple running this place. Give 'em a hand." The night shift workers started clapping again. Rachel clapped half-heartedly and turned to look for Finn. She gave him a small frown looked up and then looked back down at her feet and turned back to Brody and clapped along with the rest of the hospital staff.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Three: Coming Home**

Today was the big day for Kurt. It was the day Blaine was coming home, and he could not be more excited about it.

Before his shift started, he was on the phone with Blaine, who was already back stateside and on his way to see Kurt.

"You know I'm glad that you're stateside." Kurt said to him over the phone. "I really missed you."

"I really missed you too, Kurt. And you know what else I missed? A real apple. Not the Styrofoam ones they try to pass off as real apples but clearly aren't."

"Well, I made sure to stock up on them for you." Kurt said. Someone opened the door to where he was and he jumped slightly.

"Kurt, you have got to see this." Sam said.

"Uh, just hold on for one minute." Kurt said. Sam nodded and shut the door. Kurt stretched and followed him out. "So if you could have those windows fixed by this weekend, that would be great."

"I love you too." Blaine said. Kurt smiled and hung up the phone.

"Dude, you have to feast your eyes on what one of the nurses found." Sam said, pulling up his iPad to an online dating website. "It's Jesse. He has a dating profile. FreddieMercury2000. Look, he likes long walks on the beach…"

"Well who doesn't?" Kurt asked with a smile on his face as he tried to hold back his laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, and he likes everything life has to offer." Sam said, causing the two of them to burst out into laughter.

Mercedes came up next to them and grabbed the iPad. "Is that Jesse?" She studied his profile picture a little harder. "Oh my God, you can see his ex-wife's hand in the picture."

"Oh, look, there's someone who's interested in him. Let's look and see what she has to say." Sam said.

"No, no, that's crossing the line." Kurt said. "Let's just leave him alone on this one. He's lonely. He just doesn't have your moves, Sam." He pointed at Mercedes. "Mercedes, can I grab you for a second?"

"Yes." She smiled at him as they both walked away.

"I need to get out on time after the shift so if you finish my charts for me, I'll cover a weekend shift for you."

"Blaine's back in town tonight, isn't he?" Mercedes asked as her smile on her face grew wider.

"Yes, yes he is."

All the way across town, Finn walked up to the front door of Rachel's house and knocked on the door. He shoved his hands into his pocket and waited for Rachel to answer the door. "I've been walking around all night trying to get you out of my mind but I can't stop thinking about you…and about our kiss."

Rachel sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "What am I supposed to with that?"

Finn shrugged. "I guess I should just tell you the truth."

Back at the hospital, Jesse and Brody were talking as they walked up to the nurses' station. "You want to wait for Rachel?" Jesse asked.

"No, she's running late and she told me to start without her." Brody said. "Alright, gather around, everyone, gather around. I want to thank you guys for coming in a little bit early tonight."

"I have four cranky women in my house. I will gladly come in early." Puck said.

"I have five sisters, I totally get it." Brody said, trying to show the rest of the staff that he was easy to get along with. "Anyway, I want to talk to you guys about some ways that I think we can have better cooperation between the ER and surgical departments." One of the hospital phones started to ring and Molly answered it.

"With you and Rachel running things, I like to think it's better already." Jesse said.

"That's very true." Brody said with a smile. "Now, we've been talking a lot about it and I believe that we—"

"Excuse me, doctor." Molly said, cutting him off when she got off the phone. "That was dispatch. There was a bus accident on Highway 190. The passengers are soldiers. There are multiple victims and the exact count is unknown. They're going to every hospital in the area and ours will be here in twenty minutes."

Kurt, upon hearing that the victims of the crash were soldiers immediately felt his blood run cold. This is not how he wanted his boyfriend to return home.

"Alright, let's clean and prep trauma and call in all available surgeons." Brody said.

"I'll call Rachel and have her get her ass over here. Molly, I need you to call Finn." Jesse said, walking away as he started dialing his phone to call Rachel.

Rachel answered her cell phone, seeing it was Jesse calling. "What's going on, Jesse?"

"There's been a huge bus accident. I need you to hurry the fuck up and get over here. Immediately." Jesse said as he hung up the phone. Rachel looked over at Finn and saw he was getting the same phone call.

"We have to go." Finn said.

Rachel nodded and grabbed her purse and keys. "Come on, I'll drive." Rachel said. She led Finn out to her car and they got in and started to drive off.

"You can find whatever you want on the radio. I don't really know of a good station down here still." Rachel said.

"You don't listen to music on your way here? How do you get pumped for a shift?" Finn asked, spinning the dial on the car radio to find something decent to listen to.

"I like the silence. I can collect my thoughts and have peace and quiet." Rachel said. Finn stopped on a station and the opening notes of Faithfully by Journey started playing. "Of course you would find this song on the radio."

Finn smiled at her. "Oh come on. I know how much you love this song. I think you even declared it as our song."

Rachel smiled as she relived the memories of her and Finn. Abruptly, she changed the station. "Well, that was in the past." She stopped on a Pat Benatar song.

"Oh come on, Rach. You can't tell me you still don't love that song."

"No, I do love the song. But it loses its value when it reminds you of someone that you aren't together with anymore."

Twenty minutes later, the ambulances roared to a stop in front of the hospital and everyone sprang into action.

"BP ninety-eight over fifty-three," one of the EMTs said as Puck started writing the blood pressure on the soldier's arm. "Pulse one thirty one, blunt force trauma to the chest and multiple fractured ribs."

"Is there a collapsed lung?" Mercedes asked, putting her stethoscope onto the guy's chest.

Puck put his next to where Mercedes was and listened. "No, the heart sounds muffled. Look at his neck veins, it's cardiac tapenade. Get me an eighteen gauge needle and a sixty-six CC spread." The soldier started thrashing on the gurney. "We need to drain the blood from his heart."

Kurt popped up in the ambulance bay, looking at all the incoming patients, trying to figure out if Blaine was among them. He let out an exasperated groan and kept looking for his boyfriend.

"Mercedes, I need you to continue pulling slowly." Puck said, handing her the needle. Mercedes took it and Puck went off to help with more of the incoming traumas.

At a different part of the ambulance bay, Artie pulled back a piece of the victim's shirt and gasped. "Whoa, intestines. I need help over here!"

"Okay, what do we have?" Brody asked, taking Artie's place. "It looks a lot worse than it is; just a quick fix in the ER. Come on, let's go." Brody started walking around so he could wheel the soldier inside and froze when he saw Rachel's car pull up. It barely made it to a stop before the passenger side door opened and Finn stepped out.

"Rachel, we need your help over here!" one of the nurses called to her. Finn and Rachel took off in opposite directions, but not before Finn sent one last look towards Rachel that Brody didn't miss.

Rachel ran over to one of the soldiers. "His pelvis is unstable. We need an abdomen-pelvic CT with contrast." Rachel said, pulling the strings on the sling tighter together in an attempt to temporarily get his pelvis normal again. "Alright, let's go!" Rachel said as they started to wheel him into the hospital.

"Alright, we need to get this guy up to the OR now." Brody said as they started to wheel in their patient.

"Hey, Brody, where are you going?" Finn asked from his spot where he was working on a patient.

"Up to the OR. His airway is filled with blood."

"Here, take a trach kit." Finn said, tossing something to him. "That way you can do it now."

"Kurt, I need an extra set of hands." Brody said, trying to get Kurt's attention. "Kurt!"

Kurt ignored Brody and kept running, trying to see which of the patients being unloaded was Blaine. He finally saw him getting unloaded with bloody bandage wrapped around his leg. "Finn! Finn, I need you over here!" Kurt called over to him.

"What's up?" Finn asked, looking down at the patient.

"This is Blaine." Kurt said simply.

"As in…Blaine?" Finn asked, wanting to make sure he completely understood what Kurt was talking about. Kurt nodded and Finn gulped. "Alright, well we got to get him inside."

Back inside the hospital, Jesse was directing the staff on where to take their patients. "Weston and Berry, take them to the burn unit."

"Hey Finn, when I finish, let me take over the crushed leg." Brody called out to Finn.

"I don't think so and Kurt is with me." Finn said as they wheeled Blaine into the hospital.

"Are you really questioning my authority?" Brody asked.

"No, it's just Kurt is Army Reserves and there's a lot I can teach him." Finn said, covering for his friend. "It'll be for things he'll need out in the field."

"Fine. But bring him up to the OR in an hour. I'm going to need to amputate." Brody said. Finn gave him a slight nod and rolled Blaine into the trauma room as he immediately started calling out directions on what to do.

"It looks like he ruptured an artery. We need to stop the bleeding now." Finn said, trying to hold his leg together.

"We can't let Brody amputate. Finn, we've got to save his leg, okay?" Kurt said.

"Sam, there's a vascular doctor on hold, get him in here now."

"Doctor Murphy is too tied up, we're not going to be able to get him right now."

"No, Sam, we need him. We need him now." Kurt said.

"Kurt, you need to calm down because this isn't going to help Blaine. You need to keep it together. We'll stop the bleeding, and you need to go outside and take a breath." Finn said. "I will call you if anything changes."

In another trauma room, Puck was working on a patient while also watching Mercedes to make sure she was doing everything right. "Okay, Mercedes, once you're done irrigating the wound, I need you to cut away the dead tissue."

"Wait, you have to use scissors?" the soldier asked, a slightly petrified look appearing on his face.

"No, put those down, you're not using scissors." Puck said. "She's going to use a scalpel. It gives us cleaner edges."

"I promise, Private Wilson, I will be gentle with you." Mercedes said, smiling at the patient. She started cutting away at the dead tissue and he grimaced.

"So, are you from around here?" he asked, trying to mask the pain.

"Is that a pick up line or are you that curious?"

"I-I don't know…"

"Cat's got your tongue. It's probably a concussion."

"Oh snap, Wilson." one of the other soldiers in the trauma room said.

"Well, only if I got it from you." Wilson said, looking back at Mercedes. "Because you're a knockout." Puck started laughing at the corniness of what he was saying. "See how I turned that around there because concussion…knockout…boom."

"I'll be right back. I have to go find some dressings."

Wilson turned his attention to Puck. "Hey, doc, do you think I have a shot with her?"

"If you don't give it a try, it might just pass you by." Puck said, waggling his eyebrows.

In a different part of the hospital, Artie was wheeling around a soldier with a bandage over his eye. "We've got to call and see an ophthalmologist. For the mean time, you should try and avoid straining, sneezing, or blowing your nose—"

"Look, no offense," he started, cutting Artie off. "But I don't take advice from children, Doogie."

"Okay, listen, Doogie Howser was sixteen and I'm twenty-four. Also, he was a television doctor, and I am a real doctor." Artie said as he kept wheeling the soldier throughout the hospital.

"Point taken and ignored, Doogie."

Molly started walking up from behind them. "Doctor Rose? Doctor Rose!" she called, trying to get Marley's attention. Marley smiled and started to walk towards her. "Don't kill the messenger, but Mrs. Palmer is back."

"Oh no." she groaned as she started to walk past some of the soldiers standing around in the hallway. "Does anyone need me? PTSD? Anything you want to talk about?"

"I have a meth-induced psychosis handcuffed to the bed."

"I'll take it. I've already seen her three times this month. She won't take her meds and she won't follow up with outpatient psych and the extra paperwork is—" Marley didn't get to finish her sentence as she heard someone tapping on the glass. She looked over and saw it was the patient.

"Yoohoo, Doctor Rose. Do I have a story for you!"

Marley faked a smile. "I'll be right there, Mrs. Palmer, just give me one minute."

Across the hospital, Jesse heard mariachi music being played. He went into one of the waiting rooms and looked disgusted. "Whoa, no music in here. Got it?"

"Sorry man, we know it's crazy with the troops and we thought we'd entertain the music while they're waiting to be soon." the leader of the band said. "And besides, Julio's got a bad stomachache. It must have been the sushi."

"I'm sorry to make you wait, but this is not a concert hall. It's a waiting room. Doctor Abrams, please take a lot a Mr. Julio, apparently he's not feeling so well. In the meantime, I'm sure everyone would appreciate a little quiet."

"Oh, I don't appreciate the quiet." Mrs. Palmer said, turning to Jesse. "Music is a wonderful gift and I think they should share it. You play so beautifully!"

"Mr. St. James, I think Julio is going to need an insulin drip." Artie said after listening to Julio's heartbeat.

In one of the OR rooms, Kurt was assisting Finn with a procedure that might make it possible for Blaine to keep his leg. "You've done this before, right?" Kurt asked.

"Kurt, chill. I know how to do this. I need you to tie the sutures and if we're lucky, everything is going to be fine. We won't know if it takes right away, so we just need to make sure we can get enough blood flow from the top half of his leg to the bottom half of his leg. We just need a couple of hours to see if it's going to take." Finn put his hand on the bottom of Blaine's leg. "Okay. I feel a pulse. It's weak, but it's there."

Kurt put his hands right next to where Finn's were. "Thank you." he said breathlessly.

"Kurt, this is just a Hail Mary. Don't get your hopes up."

In a different OR, Rachel slid the door shut and went to talk to Brody. "Hey."

"Hi."

"There's lots of surgeries lining up in the ER. Are you okay?"

"Another day, another dozen surgeries. Oh, I couldn't help but notice that with all of the craziness, you pulled up with Finn."

"Doctor Weston, they're ready for you in surgical two." a nurse said, interrupting their conversation. "And the soldier's leg amputation is scheduled for after that."

"Yeah, I, um, I brought Finn to work today because his bike is in the shop and he needed a ride." Rachel said, lying.

"Well, why didn't he call Puck or Marley or any of the million people around here who idolize him. Is this going to happen a lot?"

"No, it was a onetime thing."

"Well, that's one time too many. I've got to go." He walked by Rachel and patted her on the shoulder. She watched him walk out of the OR room to go to the other one and took a deep breath.

Artie was having the worse luck of his life. Right after he got the patient on an insulin drip, he was walking towards the nurses' station when he saw a cluster of soldiers talking together, and right in the middle of it all was the one who kept calling him Doogie.

"Hey, it's Doogie." Artie sighed, trying to ignore him. "Hey, Doogie, I know you can hear me!" Artie sighed again as the rest of the soldiers started chanted Doogie.

Artie walked through the nurses' station and Jesse clapped him on the back. "You have to earn their respect, man." Jesse walked off and laughed to himself. "Doogie." Sam jogged, trying to catch up with him. "Do you need something?"

"Okay, here's the thing, I saw your dating profile…"

Jesse paused, grabbed and pulled him towards his office. "Where did you find that?"

"Look, there's no need to be embarrassed. I know who's around here and I know the hours we work here is tight…"

"Is there a point to this?"

"You give me the next two Saturdays off and I'll help you fix your terrible and horribly pathetic profile. Look, it's not you, it's just your profile. You're a guy with a job and you say you like kids. That makes you like Johnny Depp to the single moms out there. So, you help me and I'll help you."

Jesse nodded. "Okay."

Back in the trauma room with Mercedes and Wilson, the soldier that was crushing on her, she was talking to him while he was surrounded by well-wishers. "The OR is swamped so your case has been pushed to the morning, which means you're stuck here."

"Well then, it's a good thing I like it here." he said as Mercedes started to bandage his arm.

"Is it the fluorescent lighting? Oh, wait, it's the antiseptic smell, isn't it?"

"No, it's you. It's definitely you." he said, making Mercedes smile.

"Look at you, Wilson, going in for the kill."

"Well aren't you sweet." Mercedes said.

"Come on, Wilson. Do it."

"Wait, do what?" Mercedes asked, getting confused.

"Since you think I'm sweet, I haven't been out with a girl since high school prom…"

"With your cousin."

"Actually, it was your sister, and she said I kissed better than you." Wilson said, trying to get the guys to shut up so he could talk to Mercedes. "As I was saying, I was wondering if you would do me the honor of going on a date with me."

"An honor? Really?" Mercedes asked.

"Totally. You're a doctor, you're smart and beautiful and way out of my league. It's a huge honor."

"Well, it would be my honor to go out on a date with you, PFC, but as your doctor, I'm really not allowed to."

"Told you it was never going to happen."

Mercedes turned around. "Hey, at least Wilson had the guts to ask me and you all were sitting here staring at my ass like scared little school girls."

"Oh yeah, Doctor Mercedes, up top!" Wilson said, giving her a high five as his nose and his eyes started bleeding.

"Don't touch your eyes, don't touch your eyes." Mercedes said, laying him back on the bed to try and stop the bleeding. She turned towards the nurse. "Get Puck in here now."

"So, what's the deal, doc?" Wilson asked once Puck got in there to stop the bleeding.

"Are you feeling tired or run down in the last few weeks?" Puck asked, trying to figure out what caused him to start bleeding.

"I mean, I guess so, but not more than usual. What's going on?"

"Mercedes, can you hand me his chart?" Puck asked. Mercedes handed it to him and he looked over it. "Here, do you notice the rash on his arm? He has low platelets. That explains the bleeding."

"Any family history of bruising or bleeding disorders?" Mercedes asked.

"No, Doctor Mercedes." he said, making her smile.

"Well, we're going to have to get you some blood tests and get you going with some platelets. A nurse will be in soon." Puck gave the two of them a knowing smile and left.

"What's wrong with me?" Wilson asked.

"I don't know but I will make sure I find out, okay?" Mercedes said. "Just don't be scared."

"Scared? I'm not scared. I kicked the Tailban's ass over there." He started laughing, making Mercedes laugh too.

"Yeah, I bet you did."

In one of the recovery rooms, Finn was checking Blaine's bandages and making sure everything was still okay with his leg. "Is Captain Blaine going to be okay?"

"We'll just have to wait and see." Finn said.

"What about his leg?"

Blaine started to wake up. "What about my leg?"

"Hey, captain, how're you feeling?"

Blaine couldn't care less what was happening with the other soldier in the room as Kurt entered the recovery room. "Kurt? What are you doing here?"

"I work here." Kurt turned to the soldiers in the room. "Blaine and I went through basic together. I'm an ER doctor at San Antonio Memorial Hospital. You were in a bus accident on Highway 190."

"I was going to make you an omelet after work." Blaine said, still a little groggy.

Kurt looked taken aback. "Wait – what?"

Finn, sensing there was some tension in the room, started to take action. "Yeah, we need to clear out. Give Blaine some space so he can get examined properly. I might have given him too much meds."

"Yeah, let's clear out." Kurt said, pulling back the curtain so the soldiers could leave the room. "You can visit him later." Finn walked past him and Kurt gave him a small smile. "Thank you." He shut the curtain and walked towards Blaine's bed.

"I'm in the hospital?" he asked, still trying to get his bearings together.

"Yeah."

"Was I hurt?" Blaine asked, trying to sit up in the hospital bed. "My leg…there's blood. What is wrong with my leg?"

"Blaine, I need you to listen to me. Don't touch your leg and don't touch the tubes. We don't want them to get dislodged. You need to relax. You need to sit back and relax and just trust me. I got our best guy on this and he is going to take care of you. I need you to rest and I promise I'm looking out for you."

"You always do." Blaine said. "I'm so glad to see you."

Kurt smiled and laughed. "When did you get those gray hairs."

Blaine chuckled. "I painted them on, just for you." He started drifting off to sleep again.

Kurt watched Blaine as he fell asleep. "I'm glad you're back." He smiled at him as he left the recovery room and went into one of the filing rooms and started punching the filing cabinets as a way to let out his anger.

At the same time, Mercedes was walking the halls and heard banging coming from the filing room. "Hey, hey, what's going on? You know you can talk to me, right?"

"It's not fair that this is happening." Kurt said.

"I know." Mercedes said. "It's terrible. Is there anything I can do?"

"Nothing. Not a thing. That's the frustrating part. I can't do anything, I can't do anything to help him and I can't talk to him the way I want to talk to him. God, this place is a zoo."

"Kurt, do you really think anyone would care?"

"I'm not being the gay doctor. I will not play that. My patients…may not be as thrilled as you all guys. And then Blaine, and he's got all his guys here. I gotta go."

"Yeah, me too, but Kurt…just try and breathe, okay?" Kurt turned around and gave Mercedes a huge hug.

Back in the lobby, Marley got stuck talking to Mrs. Palmer. "I have some really great news. I know you were worried, because you thought I was being stalked by Matt Damon but I was not telling you the truth."

This was certainly news that Marley wanted to hear. "That's progress."

"Matt and I are in love." Well, there went Marley's thoughts of getting this meeting over with quickly. "And now, we have a bun in the oven!"

"You think you're pregnant?"

"Oh, I know I'm pregnant. I've been carrying this baby for two years now and it is coming."

Marley tried her hardest not to roll her eyes. She wasn't sure how much more of Mrs. Palmer she could handle. "Well, how about we do a pregnancy test. Just to be sure."

"You know what, a test would offer proof to that damn sister of mine. She thinks I'm cuckoo. Not one person in my family believes that I'm pregnant."

Marley smiled at her. "Then let's show them the truth."

In Jesse's office, Sam was in there helping him spruce up his online dating profile. "So you love to cook." Sam said, typing something in on the iPad.

"No I don't."

"Look, online dating is like a job interview. You say whatever they need to hear in order to close the deal. So, what can you cook?"

Jesse thought for a minute. "Eggs."

Sam clapped his hands together. "Perfect. Omelets. That's perfect. That says come over, spend the night, we'll do a little something, something in the morning…it's beautiful."

"No, no, no, that's…weird. This is all so weird. I haven't dated anyone in fifteen years." Jesse started walking towards the window of his office. "God, I met my ex-wife in high school."

"Yeah, well, unless you want to get arrested, you need to meet the next woman somewhere else." Sam said. "Alright, next question. What do you look for, what type do you like?"

Jesse looked out the window into the main part of the hospital. "I like petite. Someone who speaks her mind, smart, professional…"

"Good luck finding that online." Sam said, putting the iPad down on the desk. "Alright, let's post this thing."

But Jesse was too busy looking out the window at Marley to notice what Sam was saying.

"Hi, this is Doctor Marley Rose from San Antonio Memorial Hospital calling about your sister Jessica Palmer." Marley said over the phone. "Hello?" She crinkled an eyebrow when she realized she was hung up on. "Hello?"

Finn came up to the nurses' station and started filling out some paperwork. "Tough shift?" he asked, trying to make polite conversation.

"Mrs. Palmer is back and she is driving me crazy." Finn nodded. "How's the guy with the leg injury?"

"Not good. I'm trying to save it, but…" he started to trail off. "I think you're going to need to talk to him. You know, through the process and everything." Marley gave him an understand nod.

"Hey, Finn, I need a little help." Puck said, walking past the two of them.

Finn nodded and turned back to Marley. "Just make time for Captain Anderson please." He gave Marley and smile and walked towards Puck. "What's up?" he asked, noticing Rachel was standing next to a soldier as well. "Doctor Berry." he said to acknowledge her presence.

"I need your guys' opinion on kid with the nose bleed." Puck said, opening the patient's chart.

"Can I get you to hold on just one second?" Rachel asked the soldier. He nodded and she turned her attention to the chart.

"Sorry, sir." Puck said, then turned back to the chart. "Look at this, he has almost no platelets. Now, what could have caused them to plummet like that?"

"Leukemia?" Finn suggested.

"No because look at his other blood levels. They aren't affected." Rachel thought for a second. "Maybe Danu Fever?"

"Where would he have caught it from? He was in Afghanistan, not Vietnam. DIC?" Finn suggested.

Puck shook his head. "His co-ags are normal. I was thinking maybe an auto-immune disorder?"

"Idiopathic thrombicynicperpera." Rachel said quickly.

"ITP." Finn concurred.

"Low platelets, normal crit and white blood cells…ITP." Puck shut the chart and poked Rachel. "You…case closed. Thank you."

"Anytime." Finn called after him.

"So, you have Kurt's friend, right?" Rachel asked as she went back to work on the soldier.

"Yeah. It looked a little iffy there for awhile, but he's stable now."

"Good." Rachel said. "I thought he was going to get amputated."

"Well, I want to try every avenue first." Finn said.

"Of course." Rachel said, not taking her eyes off of her patient. "You did great." She gave him a smile and turned to Finn. "Hey, Finn. I need to talk to you for a second."

Finn shrugged his shoulders. "Sure."

"So," Rachel said, walking away from a patient with Finn following her. "Brody's saw us arrive together today and I told him you needed a ride because your bike was in the shop." She started rubbing her temples to get the headache that was starting to form to go away.

"Why would you tell him that?" Finn asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I don't know. I just didn't want to upset him that you came by. I feel terrible."

"About the other day?" Finn asked, hoping that wouldn't be the case.

"No." Rachel said a little harshly. "No," she said a little softer. "Because I lied." She looked around to make sure no one was listening and dropped her voice. "I don't know how I feel about that kiss. Wait, that's not even true, I feel guilty and I'm confused and I—"

"Rachel, they need you in trauma one." Molly said, interrupting their conversation. "Finn, Doctor Weston wants to see you in the OR. Immediately."

Across the hospital, Brody slid open the door to the OR as Finn was walking up to meet him. Brody pulled off his scrub cap and threw it away. "I've been waiting to do the amputation on Captain Anderson and I just found out you did an external emergency bypass."

Finn looked slightly confused. "Yeah, I'm trying to give him a chance to save his leg."

"Well he has no chance of saving his leg." Brody said, interrupting Finn.

"I didn't ask you for a consult so I'm not ready to amputate." Finn said, starting to walk away.

"Your job is to stabilize. If they need surgery, they come to me."

"Yeah, and you amputate the limbs of old people and people who have been sick, so soldiers need to feel like this is the first resort, not the last resort."

"That's Marley's job, not yours." Brody pointed a finger at Finn. "You're wasting my time."

"Next time I'll consider your delicate feelings before the person who's got to lose a leg." Finn said, calling out to Brody.

Brody turned around. "Yeah, that's right, make this about me. Do you not get it? I was waiting in the OR with four soldiers in line to get opened up, waiting because you thought it was okay to do your own thing."

"Not my thing, okay?" Finn said, getting up in Brody's face. "My patient's thing. So you leave it for a few more hours, okay?"

"This whole kamikaze, battlefield surgery crap is not going to fly anymore now that I'm here. You need to step away and stop acting like you own this place and everyone in it. I'm doing that amputation now." Brody said as he started to walk away again.

"No, you're going to wait until Marley…" Finn started to say before getting punched in the face by Brody. He stumbled back and knocked some of the patient charts off of the nurses' station. He lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Brody's waist and slammed him into the wall. Brody fell onto one of the couches and Finn punched him in the face. They kept fighting and fell off the couch and continued fighting each other. Finn punched Brody in the side repeatedly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, break it up!" one of the other interns said, running over to try and break the two men apart.

"What's going on here?" Jesse asked, overhearing the scuffle. When he saw it was Finn and Brody, he got a stern look on his face. "My office. Now."

As soon as they got in there, Brody started talking. "You hired me, you _recruited_ me to be the head of trauma. There isn't a hospital in the country where an ER doctor makes the call about what cases go to the OR."

"We are not your typical ER doctors." Finn said. "Puck and I have done everything you have except crawl under fire and Kurt…Kurt is a battlefield medic. He's way ahead of other residents."

"Okay, okay, that's enough." Jesse said. "Nobody is questioning anybody's credentials. The problem isn't how good either of you, it's how you're going to get along." There was a knock on the office door, and Jesse went over to get it. Rachel stepped in and looked between the two of them.

"Ah, Doctor Berry. Just the person I wanted to see. You are the head of the ER night shift and I want you to deal with these egomaniacs and I will expect a solution at the end of the shift." Jesse glared at everyone and slammed the door to the office when he left. Rachel nodded and looked between the two of them again.

"I didn't want to bring up any personal crap while Jesse was in here but you are way out of line with what you're doing. You need to realize that whatever happened between you and Rachel was years ago and it is over." Brody said, glaring at Finn.

"Okay, Brody, you need to…this is not the time or place." Rachel said, trying to get him to calm down.

"So what you're doing is you're telling me how to run my life now?" Finn asked accusingly.

"No, I'm telling you the next time you need a ride, call a cab. I'll give you the twenty bucks. Just leave Rachel out of it."

"Yeah, I'll do that." Finn said, his eyes narrowing.

"Finn, can you just give us a moment." Rachel said. "Thank you."

Finn winked at Rachel and started to walk away. "I'm sorry, I try, but I don't like him. I don't like the way he peacocks around this place and I don't like the way he talks to you and I sure as hell don't like him calling you for a ride."

Rachel sighed. "He didn't call me for a ride. He came by my house."

"He came by your house." Brody repeated.

"He wanted to talk."

"Wow." Brody said as he started to walk away.

"Brody, look, it has just been really weird between the two of us and—"

"I can't believe you lied to me."

"I didn't want to make this a big deal."

"Yeah, well, I think you missed that train." Brody said as he walked away.

"Brody, please don't…"

"You lied to me and you lied to me about him." Brody said, opening the door to Jesse's office as he slammed it shut again.

Elsewhere, Finn met up with Puck, who was reading him the riot act. "You have to stop messing with Rachel's head."

"I'm not messing with her head—"

"You have to let her go." Puck said, cutting him off.

"Puck, she can do whatever she wants."

"Do not pull that crap on me. You know she's tied to you and you're tied to her in your messed up codependent relationship."

"So maybe we should be together." Finn said.

"No, you should not. Look, I love you, brother, but this point in your life, you have no idea what it means to be a father, a husband, certainly not a good boyfriend, and she has a guy who's…maybe he's not our favorite, but she has a guy who treats her well. You really want to fuck that up for her?"

"So I should just…walk away?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Puck said, watching Finn's face fall. "What if you're never ready? What if she gives up everything for you? She's done it before. Do you really want to put her through that again?" Finn didn't answer Puck's question, instead choosing just to glare at him.

At the other side of the hospital, Mrs. Palmer was being wheeled down the hallway in her hospital bed as she was being serenaded by the mariachi band. Marley met up with her as one of the nurses handed her pieces of paper. "Your pregnancy test, hot off the presses." Marley said, looking at them. "And you are…" she trailed off when she read what was on the paper. "Son of a bitch. You're pregnant!"

"Yes!" Mrs. Palmer said. "I just wish Matt was here but he's on location."

"This can't be right." Marley muttered to herself, looking at the test results again.

"I have to call Jen and Ben. They're going to be so excited, they're very invested in this." Mrs. Palmer said with a laugh. "And jealous, Jen says she loves being pregnant."

Back in Wilson's room, Puck was checking on him after giving him a round of steroids. "You are doing much better now that we've started you on steroids. No more bleeding. How do you feel?"

"Better. Not great, but definitely better. Maybe it's Doctor Mercedes." He smiled in her direction and Mercedes smiled back at him.

"Is there something going on that I should know?" he asked.

"No, no, I've been hitting on Doctor Mercedes and she told me we can't go out because she's my doctor."

"Well, you know, I was thinking about it and technically, I'm not his doctor of record." Mercedes said, looking at Puck.

He nodded. "I see where you're going. I am your official doctor of record, PFC, so you and I couldn't go out."

"Well, no offense sir, but you're not my type." Wilson said, making Puck start laughing.

The curtain was drawn back and a group of soldiers were standing there. "Wilson's not anyone's type."

"Well, guess again pirate, because Wilson and I are going to get a beer." Mercedes said, smiling at him.

"See, I told you guys I was a ladies' man!" He turned his attention back to Mercedes.

"Well then, let's hear it for Wilson!" Blaine said, now fully awake. "Wilson, Wilson, Wilson!"

"Captain Blaine is like my big brother." Wilson said to Mercedes.

Finn heard the chanting and walked over to where they were, with Kurt following behind him. "Well, it looks like everyone is feeling better so let's clear out and give the captain privacy for his exam."

"I've seen his ass like a million times already." one of the soldiers, the one who kept calling Artie "Doogie" said to Finn.

"Oh, and it's a beauty, isn't it?" Blaine said, making a joke.

"It's perfectly formed. I almost took a shot at it myself."

"Yeah?" Blaine said.

"Hey, I have a secret for you." Finn said, pulling the soldier off to the side. "The whirlpool, up in rehab, it's totally empty right now. And the nurses…they would love to hear how you kicked Osama bin Laden's ass."

"Sorry, bro, but duty calls." He went over to Blaine and gave him a clap on the back.

"It's impossible to get those guys of here." Kurt said as Finn closed the curtain again.

"What's the story with my leg, Kurt?" Blaine asked.

"I don't know."

"Kurt, you know that's not the truth. Don't you pretend with me."

"I don't know." Kurt repeated. "The surgeon is on his way."

"You're lying to me." Blaine said, starting to get frustrated.

"I'm not lying to you, I don't know what's going on. It'll be okay."

"Don't tell me it'll be okay." Blaine said, getting even more frustrated. "Four tours in Afghanistan, I got a splinter and sunburn on my back, but as soon as I get home, this," he said, gesturing to his leg. "This happens. We were supposed to go hiking tomorrow."

"Whatever happens, we will deal with it." Kurt said, trying to calm him down.

"What is this _we_? This is my leg. You can go back to whatever after your shift is over."

"Do you think I don't care?"

Blaine opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by someone opening the curtain. "Good evening, captain. Kurt, would you give us a minute, I'd like to examine his leg." Brody said, coming into the room.

"I'd like to stay, if that's okay. I haven't seen an injury like this before."

Brody looked conflicted. "Well, I'm okay with it as long as the patient is okay with it."

"That's fine." Blaine said, still a little upset.

Brody pulled back the blankets around Blaine's leg and sighed. It was completely purple and black. "I'm sorry, we need to get you to the OR."

Blaine swallowed thickly. "To do what?"

"We need to amputate. The procedure Doctor Hudson tried didn't take. The leg is already dying and you're going to become septic if we don't amputate."

"You said it would work." Blaine said, glaring at Kurt.

"I said it might work. It was a Hail Mary, Blaine, we had to try something."

"No, you're not going to take my leg."

"Captain…" Brody started.

"No, get out of here. Both of you. Leave. Now!"

"Blaine…"

"I said get out! I would rather die than lose my leg." Blaine said, glaring at the two of them.

A few rooms down in the hospital, Mrs. Palmer was sitting on one of the hospital beds as the mariachi band from before was playing in her room, much to her delight.

"Okays, Mrs. Palmer, you're going to feel some pressure." Rachel said. Marley had called Rachel in for assistance with the ultra sound because she was going to prove once and for all that she wasn't pregnant.

"I remember you." Mrs. Palmer said to Rachel. "You're the one who loved The Talented Mr. Ripley."

Rachel looked slightly confused. "Yeah. Sure."

"I've got news for you." Mrs. Palmer said. "This is Matt Damon's baby." she whispered. Rachel and Marley exchanged incredulous looks. "Crazy, huh?"

"Just try and hold still please." Marley said.

"Uh, Marley." Rachel said, seeing something appear on the ultrasound screen.

"So, is it a boy or a girl?" Mrs. Palmer asked.

"We need to run some tests." Rachel said, which made Mrs. Palmer smile.

"Fine by me. I guess doctors don't like to guess. I'm sure Matt and I won't care anyway."

"Great. We'll be back shortly." Rachel said, smiling at her.

"I mean, I'd like to have a boy for Matt first, but after that we're open to anything." Mrs. Palmer kept saying, even though Rachel and Marley had left the nurse was on his way out.

"What did you think that was?" Marley asked when they got out of the room.

"Well, I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think it was an ovarian tumor."

Marley nodded. "That could explain the false positive."

"Let's get a CT just to confirm it." Rachel said.

"Thanks." Marley said as Rachel started walking off. "Wait!" she called, running after her. "So about the whole Brody and Finn thing, if you want to talk…"

"Yeah, yeah. That whole fight thing was…"

"I wasn't talking about the fight. I was talking about the situation."

"Well, thank you, but it might be a little weird. Don't you think?"

Marley realized what she had just offered. "Oh yeah. You're totally right."

Rachel smiled at her. "But thanks anyway. I'm going to go run and see about the CT."

In one of the trauma rooms, Puck and Finn were talking to Wilson as they were switching his bandages. "He wanted me to get you because he heard you were a ranger." Puck said to Finn.

"Yeah, were you actually in Kandahar when the battle went down?"

"In the med tent." Finn smiled as he pulled up the hospital gown to see how the wounds were doing. "Wait, have these gotten bigger?" Finn asked Puck.

"Those aren't typical for ITP." he whispered back. "It could be bug bites or an infected abrasion that we didn't know about before.

"They are really itchy." Wilson said, hoping he was being helpful to them.

"I'll order you some Benadryl and I'll check back to see if the swelling has gone down." Puck said.

"And maybe Doctor Mercedes can stop by later?"

"Yeah, I will make sure she comes by." Puck said.

"Alright, so we'll see you in a little bit." Finn said. He leaned in closer to Puck and whispered. "Hey, you got a minute to talk?"

"Absolutely." Puck said in the same low tone.

In the waiting room, Jesse came up to Sam. "I got some responses on my new profile."

Sam chuckled. "Let me take a look." He took the iPad from Jesse and began reading the comments that were posted. "No, not this one."

"Why not her? I thought she looked pretty sexy."

"No, no, no, she's in profile. They have to be showing the whole enchilada."

"What are you guys doing?" Marley asked, coming up from behind the two of them.

"Oh, nothing, you know, just some, uh, stuff, some work stuff." Jesse said, clearing his throat.

"Okay." Marley said, not looking too convinced. "Sam, if Mrs. Palmer's sister calls, please come get me. I'll be in trauma four with Captain Anderson."

"Great." Jesse said, giving her a smile.

"Oh my God, you dirty dog." Sam said. "You've got a thing for Marley."

"What? No, please." Jesse said, fake scoffing.

"You've got a thing for Marley." Sam repeated.

"She's a coworker and she's way out of my league."

"Of course she is. But that does not mean you can't like her. Besides, there's plenty of ugly dudes with hot chicks."

"Thanks for the compliment." Jesse said. "And you know what, I'm responding to this one. She seems nice."

"Doctor Abrams to rehab." Artie heard over the PA system. He sighed and turned around, walking back to the rehab part of the hospital.

"What's going on?" Artie asked when he got inside.

"It's pirate. We were being stupid and something happened." one of the soldiers said. Artie looked and saw the guy who had been tormenting him all night in the whirlpool with his eye bulging out of socket.

"I thought it would be funny if I jumped in." he started to explain.

"But then he slipped and he hit his eye on the side."

"It really hurts."

"Okay, it's a retro-orbital hematoma. You're bleeding behind your eye. Tech is downstairs; let's get him out."

"No, no, no, no, don't touch me." he said. "It's black. It's black and I can't see anything. Help me, Doogie."

"You need a doctor." Artie said.

"Well aren't you a doctor?" one of the soldiers said.

"You gotta help me. Help me, Doogie."

"Alright, I'm on it."

Back in the trauma rooms, Marley was talking to Blaine about the surgery. "I'm nothing without my leg. I'm a jock, I'm a soldier, I'm the Army, I lead men. That's what I do."

"Is that what you're afraid of? The surgery is going to take it all away from you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I might as well be dead."

"That's ridiculous. With today's prosthetics, you're going to be able to do anything that anyone else can."

"You know what? Stay out of this." Blaine said, snapping at Kurt.

"I think Captain Anderson is worried about whether people will still respond to him the same way if he loses his leg." Marley said, interjecting so Blaine didn't get any more upset than he already was.

"And they will. Your platoon loves you, they respect you, they will always be there for you."

"Well that's easy to say now." Blaine said.

"Well, that's all we can do now. I don't have a crystal ball. You can't ask people to promise the future like that. It doesn't work that way."

"This is ridiculous. I have to decide between losing my leg and dying and we're talking in these stupid riddles?" He turned to Marley. "You do know what's going on between us, right?"

"Blaine, don't."

"No, tell her, Kurt. Come on tough guy. It's not so fun, is it?"

"I have another patient." Kurt said weakly. "I have to go."

Back in the rehab room, Rachel met Artie up there. "He just lost his vision." Artie relayed to Rachel. "Will you please…"

"Artie, you can handle this. I'm going to talk you through it."

Artie took a few deep breaths and turned towards his patient. "Alright, I need you to stop moving. I need you to trust me because I can do this, alright?" The patient nodded and the nurse handed Artie a needle. He stuck it near his eye and injected him with the fluid.

"Good." Rachel said. "Now crimp the lateral skin with the scissors down to the orbital rim." Artie did what Rachel said. "Very good. Now locate the lateral canthas tendon and snip." Rachel said.

"I can see again."

"Great. Very good job, Doctor Abrams." Rachel said, smiling at him.

"Thank you, Doogie."

Rachel smiled at the two of them and left to go back to the ER nurses' station. "Hey so is the department finally down to normal flow?" Rachel asked one of the nurses at the desk.

"More or less."

"Good. That's what I like to hear." Rachel said.

"Rachel, I need to talk to you." Brody said.

"Yeah, I was just—"

"Your people aren't restocking the trauma rooms when they're finished. There was only one thoracotomy tray and two chest tubes in trauma one. What if we had another multi casualty event?"

Rachel frowned slightly. "I'll take care of it."

"Thank you." Brody said curtly before trying to walk off again.

"Brody, wait. Can we please talk? I really want to fix this."

"Let's just get through this shift." he said before he walked off.

Rachel watched him walk off before turning around and almost running into Mercedes, who was speed walking towards a patient's room.

"Everything okay, Mercedes?" Rachel asked, calling after her.

"Just fine!" she called back. She made it Wilson's room and smiled. "So, I was thinking maybe we could go bowling or ice skating. Have you ever been ice skating?" Mercedes asked.

"No." Wilson said as he continually scratched his shoulder. "It sounds fine though."

"Hey, how are you feeling?" she asked, getting worried.

"Uh, sorta lousy. I feel really itchy."

"Let's take this blanket off." Mercedes said, pulling down the blanket. Wilson started tearing off his hospital gown and Mercedes saw all of his bite marks. She ran back to the entrance to the room. "Puck. Puck!" Puck looked up from the chart he was looking at and ran into the room. "His temperature is one-oh-three."

Puck shook his head. "It's not ITP. I think it's visceral leishmaniasis."

"Visceral what?" Mercedes asked.

"It's a mild case that comes from Afghanistan. He must have caught it from sand flies." He froze for a second. "The steroid. We have to get him off the steroid."

"Puck, we have to save him." Mercedes said.

"Get the crash cart."

Sam, hearing this from the nurses' station, gathered everything he was going to need and ran into the room. He looked at the soldiers and gave them an apologetic smile. "Let's move out and give the doctors some room to work.

"Push another mil of epi and lydocaine." Finn said, who had also come into the room to help. "Charge the panels to three-sixty. Clear." he said as he put the panels to Wilson's chest in an effort to revive him. Mercedes started pumping at his chest.

"Stop the compressions." Puck said awhile later so he could try to check for a pulse. He sighed and looked at Mercedes. "It's been thirty five minutes without spontaneous blood circulation."

"Damn it." Mercedes said, stepping back.

"Time of death, five thirty-one AM." Puck said, calling his death. They pulled the blanket over his head and someone turned off the machine so they didn't hear the beeping.

Next door in Blaine's room, Kurt walked in, hoping he'd be in a better mood than before. "Kurt, I'm scared."

"I'm booking the surgery. And I swear I will drug you and do it myself if you don't agree to it."

Blaine gave him a teary nod. "Okay."

Kurt nodded. "Okay." He started writing some things down on a piece of paper and Blaine reached out his hand to try and take Kurt's hand. "Blaine, I can't. _I can't._" He looked at the soldiers who were in the room. "Captain's got to prep for surgery. Soldiers, it's time to clear out." Kurt ushered them out of the room.

Back in the main lobby, Rachel came up behind Brody and rubbed his shoulder. "Brody…I'm really sorry."

"I know you are. This whole thing seems a little silly after seeing the poor kid. Just don't ever lie to me again." Rachel gave him a small smile and nodded. "I'll see you back at your place after the surgery." Brody said.

"Yeah." Rachel said, hugging Brody close.

"So I'm not pregnant." Mrs. Palmer said a little while later when Marley told her the news.

"No. I'm sorry." Marley said. "But your tumor is very treatable, and we think that is what is causing your psychotic states."

"Doctor Rose," Molly said, coming into the room. "Mrs. Palmer's sister is here."

"Jessie!" the three of them heard a woman yell. "Oh, Jessie." The woman ran into the room and gave her sister a hug.

"Oh, Marcie. It's not my fault. None of it has been my fault." Mrs. Palmer said.

"I know. I know and I'm so sorry."

"I know, me too."

Back in Wilson's room, Mercedes was looking at the dead body and sighed. The coroner started to wheel him out and the mariachi band started playing Taps. The American flag is placed on the bed next to him and Puck leaned in to talk to Finn. "The steroids I ordered brought down the inflammation but suppressed his immune system."

Finn pat Puck on the back. "You did the best with what you could. Wilson was a dead man, even before he got back home." Puck nodded.

Across the hall from them, Mercedes collapsed onto Sam's shoulder as she started crying. Sam wrapped an arm around her and held her close.

Rachel frowned and started walking away as Finn chased after her. "Rachel, Rachel. I want to talk to you about this morning."

"You don't have to say anything…"

"Yeah, I'm sorry I just dropped by. I'm sorry for that. But I'm not sorry for what happened. When we kissed the other day, you didn't stop when I started. So I know that you felt something. But, I won't say anything to Brody because…I don't want to ruin that for you. If that's what you want. If not, you know where to find me. That's it." Finn put his stethoscope around his neck and walked off, leaving Rachel staring after him, completely confused about what was going on in her life.

"He's ready for surgery, Doctor Weston." Rachel heard Sam say across the hallway. She walked over to where they all were and saw Kurt come out another set of doors and stood next to Mercedes.

Brody walked over to Blaine's hospital bed. "Captain Anderson, I just want you to know we're going to make this absolutely painless and we're going to save as much of your leg as possible. As soon as it's done, we're going to get you on the best prosthetics we have. I've called a buddy of mine at the Intrepid and they're already expecting you."

"Thank you." Blaine said, looking down at his hands.

Mercedes turned to Kurt. "Go with him. He's terrified."

"I can't. Not in front of him."

"Well then don't you ever tell me how tough you are again. Do you understand? All that MMA talk, all that ranger talk, it doesn't mean crap if you let him go through this alone."

"Captain," one of the guys said. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

"Captain," another said. "You're not alone in this."

Kurt let what Mercedes said sink in and walked towards Blaine's gurney. "Hold it!" He stood in front of the gurney to stop them from moving and Brody looked annoyed. "I am going to be there for you, I promise." Kurt said. His face softened. "I love you." He leaned down and kissed Blaine, Finn, who was standing in front of the elevators smiled. The elevator doors closed and everyone looked at Kurt.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Blood Brothers**

**Author's Note: Hello everyone! This episode starts in the middle of the shift, then will flashback three hours beforehand so you can understand what is going on. This chapter is super intense and gave me panic attacks when I watched it for the first time, and I hope I do it justice. The flashbacks that occur in the story are in italics.**

"The OR called back. They're ready for him." Jacob Ben Israel said, going back into the CT room to talk to Finn and Puck.

"Alright, we're moving." Finn said. "A little help, Jacob?" Jacob joined the two of them in getting the patient from the MRI bed to the hospital gurney so he can get the surgery done.

"Hey, is he talking yet?" a gruff voice asked, coming into the CT room. The three of them turned around and saw it was the DEA agent from downstairs that had been bugging them all night.

"Look, I'm sorry, this is a restricted area and we need to get him to the OR." Puck said, trying to get the agent off their backs again.

"No one's going anywhere."

"Is that so?" Finn asked, walking towards the agent. The agent lifted the gun and hit Finn in the left temple with the butt of the gun and he stumbled backwards.

"Think I'm playing, Doc?"

"It's okay, it's okay." Puck said, trying to get the agent to calm down.

"Get him talking."

"It's not that easy." Finn said, starting to get back up from the fall.

"Just do it or I'm going to kill everyone."

"You don't have to point that." Puck said, still trying to calm the guy down. This was not a situation the hospital needed to be in.

"Just do it." The agent started moving the gun around, pointing it at the three of them.

_**Three Hours Earlier**_

"Anesthetic is in." one of the nurses said to Finn.

"Thank you." Finn turned his attention to the patient sitting upright on a hospital bed with a fishing hook in his eye. "So, what were you fishing for?"

"Catfish, sunfish, striped bass."

"Hey, you wanted to see me?" Rachel said, going into the trauma room.

"Yeah, this is Mr. Perez, I need you to stabilize the base so I can cut the bottom and take the rest out." Finn said, giving Rachel a smile.

"Okay. How you doing today, Mr. Perez?" Rachel asked, getting a pair of gloves on.

"Doing good, Doc."

"Good. Thank you." Rachel said to Finn.

"So, everything going good with you and Brody?" he asked, trying to be nonchalant about the whole thing.

"All good." Rachel said, getting slightly annoyed. "We'll talk about it later."

"Okay." Finn said, making a cut to the guy's face.

"Finn!" Puck said from the door. "We just got a call. A small plane went down near Government Canyon Park, two passengers, there's no road access, they've got to chopper us in."

"I'll handle this just get Mercedes to come in." Rachel said, turning to give her full attention to the patient. Finn handed Rachel his surgical tools and went to meet Puck at the door. Puck handed him the San Antonio Memorial Hospital jackets and they started walking towards the elevator.

"You're kind of sweet on him, aren't you?" Mr. Perez asked Rachel. Rachel pulled the hook out of his eye. "Ow!"

"We're all done. Be careful out there." Rachel said, patting his shoulder, leaving the room before she could answer his question.

"So, you're going to have the eye surgery?" Marley asked Jesse as they were walking into the hospital elevators to start their shifts.

"Yeah, in a couple of months. Brody got me to the top of the list at Dallas Memorial with one of the doctors he used to work with." The elevator dinged and the two of them stepped off.

"That's exciting." Marley said, following him off the elevator. "How much is it going to improve your vision by?"

"Well, with the new laser technique, up to fifty percent."

"Wow. That's going to change your life."

"Nah." He smiled at Marley as she walked down one of the hallways to go to her office.

Elsewhere in San Antonio, the helicopter was flying overhead, trying to get Finn and Puck to the plane crash site. "So, three tours in Afghanistan, huh?" the pilot asked, trying to make friendly conversation.

"Yeah." Finn said.

"Wow. I did a double. We lost a lot of good men over there."

"Yeah, we did." Finn said, thinking back to his time in Afghanistan.

"_Keep your head down, baby brother." Thad said to Finn as they waited outside of an enemy compound in Afghanistan. "This is a long way from shooting Beebe guns in the backyard, isn't it, Finn?"_

"_Yeah. I don't think Mom would like this. Dad might." Finn said as one of the members of their platoon started firing off rounds at something in the distance._

"_We're moving in." Thad called out to the platoon._

"_Don't you think we should wait for support first?" Finn asked._

"_Quit being such a sissy, Doctor Baby Bro." Thad said, making Finn laugh. "Take the back entrance, watch your six." _

"I gotta say," Puck said, shaking his head. "I never liked riding in choppers. You always feel like they're about to crash."

"_Move, move!" Thad said as they started to get in position. Making eye contact with Finn, he started the countdown to let Finn know when he would be allowed to go inside the compound. Finn kicked the door open and froze. Thad started another silent countdown, then opened the front door and was immediately shot by whoever was inside. _

"Doctor Hudson! Doctor!" the pilot called to Finn. He snapped out of his flashback and focused back to the front of the helicopter. "Doctor Hudson, we're coming up on the sight."

"Right, right." Finn said, shaking his head to try and clear out the thoughts he was having. "There they are." Finn said, pointing down to where the remains of the plane were. "Get us down there ASAP."

"Can't. There's no place to land with all these trees." The pilot looked over at Finn and gave him a sorry look. "All I can do is drop you a couple of miles back and have you hike in."

"No, no, no, they'll be dead by the time we walk in." Puck said.

"Sorry, it's too dangerous." the pilot said as Finn started to open the door.

"Puck, what do you say we do this old school, eh?" Finn said.

"Son of a bitch." Puck said as Finn grabbed the emergency landing gear from the floor of the helicopter. "I knew you were going to say that."

Back at the hospital, a new case was being brought in. "Twenty-four year old female, fell off of a pole."

"Pole? What kind of pole?" Sam asked, meeting the EMTs when they got to the nurses' station.

"A stripper pole. I dance at the Bear Trap Gentleman's club over by the Pan-Am Expressway. I can't believe I fell off. That's never happened before."

"Let's take her to exam one and get some x-rays." Kurt said, wheeling her towards the exam room. "I'm Doctor Hummel, I'll be checking you out to make sure everything's okay."

"Artie. _Artie_." Sam said, pulling Artie off to the side. "Looks like you want to help out with this one?"

"Uh, yes, yes. Let's do it." Artie said, trying not to sound too eager. He went into the hospital room. "I'm Doctor Abrams, it's nice to meet you."

"Yeah, real nice." The patient gave him a once over. Sam smiled at her and pulled Artie out of the room.

"Hey, quick tip. Her eyes," Sam gestured towards his chest, then moved his hands up to his face. "Are up here. Got it?"

"Of course. Y-yeah." Artie said, looking in the window at her.

"Alright, good talk." Sam said as he started walking off.

Back at the airplane crash, Finn finished setting up the landing equipment. "See you down there." Finn said as he started to slide down the bungee cables. He made it safely to the ground and put on his hat with the light attached to the front of it. He looked around the plane wreckage, trying to find anyone – regardless of whether or not they were dead or alive. He finally found someone and immediately walked over to see if he was alive or not.

Puck made it down and jogged over to where Finn was. "This guy is dead." Finn said, running over to where the other victim was sprawled out on the ground. "This one's still alive."

Puck jogged over and looked to Finn for more directions. "Grab his legs." Finn said, turning his attention the patient. "I'm Doctor Hudson and I'm going to try to help you. What's your name?"

"Eric. We were on our way back from our annual golf retreat when the engine stalled out of nowhere. How's Perry doing?" he asked as Puck started to cut open the patient's shirt.

"He means the pilot." Finn said, talking to Puck. He turned his attention back to Eric. "He didn't make it." The two of them noticed Eric's head rolling to the side as he lost consciousness. "Eric, Eric." Finn said, trying to get him to regain consciousness. "I'm losing his pulse. We need to start CPR."

"This is not good." Puck said, ripped the rest of his shirt so they could see his chest.

"His chest wall's collapsed. We have to get the clavicle out or he's a dead man." Finn said as Puck went through their medical bag to get out the needed supplies. Finn did something with the scissors and Eric gasped for air and started breathing.

"Send the basket down." Puck said to the pilot from his walkie talkie. "Right now. We've got to get him out of here."

"Copy that. Basket coming down." the pilot repeated back.

"Let's place him in a C-collar and get him ready for evac." Finn said, picking up Eric's jacket to try and keep his chest area away from any potential bacteria getting into his chest. Two wrapped bags fell out of the pockets. "Well, hello. What do we have here?" Finn asked, noticing them falling out. He held one of them up to show Puck. "I don't think these guys were golfing."

Back at the hospital, Mercedes was putting a patient's chart in the assigned slot and Rachel was looking over another patient's lab results.

"Incoming." Molly said, noticing that EMTs were about to come in from the outside.

"Mercedes, you're up." Rachel said, walking over to meet the EMTs.

"Sixteen year old healthy female with shortness of breath." the EMT said.

"Can you tell me what hurts?" Mercedes asked, giving the patient a once over. It didn't look like anything was wrong with her. The patient gestured to her throat and opened her mouth.

Rachel looked in and gasped. "Oh my God, is that a fork?"

"A _fork_?!" the patient's mother asked, clearly hysterical that her daughter swallowed a fork. The EMTs rolled the patient into an exam room and transferred her onto the bed.

"I see the fork." Mercedes said.

"Great, now firmly grab it at the base." Rachel said. "And _gently_ pull."

Mercedes reached into the patient's mouth with the surgical scissors and groaned to herself. "Damn it, I lost it. It slipped further down." Right after Mercedes said this, the heart rate machines she was hooked up to started beeping like crazy.

"Stats are dropping. Pulse is down to eighty-three." The nurse read off of the machine.

"Okay, Mercedes, we need to do this now."

Mercedes was started to get shaken up. "I-I can't do this. I can't grab it."

"Yes you can." Rachel said in a calming voice.

"Stats are seventy-nine percent."

"Okay, focus." Rachel said. Mercedes bit her lip and she looked down the patient's throat and tried to get the fork again. "Breathe."

"Okay, I got it." Mercedes said.

Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, good. Now pull it out." Everyone in the room watched, completely horrified, as Mercedes pulled the fork covered in saliva out of the girl's throat. Mercedes quickly dropped the fork into the bin that was brought in while Rachel brought the oxygen mask and covered the girls face in an attempt to get her stats back to normal.

"Stats are coming up." Mercedes said, watching the monitor.

"Very good, Mercedes. Now we just have to figure out how the hell it got in there." Rachel said, turning her attention back to the patient, not seeing the grimace cloud Mercedes' features.

"Laura, send off a trauma panel and notify a blood bank, we're going to need a massive transfusion." Finn said when him and Puck arrived back at the hospital with the survivor of the plane crash. Jesse followed the two of them with another man following Jesse.

"Doctor Hudson, this is agent Milo Osborn of the DEA. He is assigned to the case."

"Yeah, the FBI was tracking a small plane that was flying low over the border carrying suspected smugglers. Made a stop in Brownsville, then the feds just lost it. Anyone else on board?"

Puck shook his head. "Pilot was DOA. He's the only guy." Puck pulled back the blanket, showing the drugs that they found on Eric's person. "And some of these."

"Okay, I'll take that for evidence." Osborn said, taking the drugs. "How soon can I talk to him?"

"Hey, hey, hey, we have to stabilize him first. He has a severe crush injury to his abdomen and chest region. We will let you know when he speaks." Finn said, walking Milo out of the trauma room and drawing the curtain shut.

A few rooms down, Artie was showing the x-rays to the stripper that was brought in. "So I'm okay?" she asked as Kurt took off her neck brace.

"Yeah, you look great. The x-rays are normal and we think it's just a strain." Artie said.

"We're just waiting on your labs. We want to doubly make sure you're okay." Kurt said.

"Listen boys, I appreciate the concern, but I gotta go. I need to get back to work and if I leave now, I can still make some decent cash tonight." She started putting her shoes back on to show that she was truly ready to leave the hospital.

"Yeah, I've got to go deal with another patient. Candy," he said, turning his attention to the stripper. "I can promise you it's going to be a half hour tops. Artie, don't let her leave." Kurt gave them both a nod and walked out the door.

Candy watched him walk out and turned her attention back to Artie. "He's cute. Too bad he's gay."

"Wait, how did you know that?" Artie asked.

"Please, I get stared at by men for a living. I know when someone's not looking at me like the way you are now."

"No, no, no, no, you're my patient, so…so I have to look at you. How could I not look at you?"

She smiled at Artie and put on her coat. "It's okay. I don't mind. You know what, I'm sick of this place and I've got to get back. Just call me if there's a problem." She grabbed her purse from the bed and started walking towards the door.

"Wait, how much money would you need to stay?" Artie asked. Candy stopped and turned back towards him. "And maybe help me out. Because I was thinking…"

"Thinking what?"

"Well, my girlfriend comes to town tomorrow and she's never exactly spent the night before so I thought you might be able to help me with that."

"You're a virgin. That's so cute. But I'm not a hooker, you know. There actually is a difference."

"No, I wasn't suggesting that." Candy opened the door and started to walk out. "Can you come back please? Look, I just thought…I have a lot of questions about women and if I asked the guys they would never ever let me live it down. I haven't even told them she was coming. So look, if I paid you for your time, would you may be clear up some things for me? The how-to's and when-to's?"

In the other trauma room, the girl who swallowed a fork was starting to wake up. Mercedes walked over to her hospital bed and lowered the railing. "Hi Nina. Are you feeling better now?" Nina nodded and Mercedes lifted the hospital bed up so she wasn't laying flat on her back. "I'm Doctor Jones. I took the fork out of your throat."

Nina nodded. "Thanks."

"So, listen, I'm pretty sure you weren't trying to hurt yourself, but I have a good idea of how the fork got down there." Mercedes said, and the girl looked terrified. "Your loss of tooth enamel and the calluses on your fingers," Mercedes tried to take Nina's hand but she yanked them away from her. "These are all signs of bulimia."

"I'm not bulimic."

Mercedes sat back in her chair and licked her lips. "You know, the reason why I recognize these signs is not because I'm a doctor, it's because I was bulimic through most of high school." The patient looked up at Mercedes with wide eyes.

In the hospital corridors, Rachel and Marley were walking and talking together about the case. "You know, when I saw the fork, I thought 'Maybe I should step in here.' And then, at first when she didn't get it, the seconds, they felt like hours, but she pulled through and I was proud of her." Rachel said, smiling at Marley.

"Yeah, well, you're good at it." Marley said, smiling back at her. "I don't have the patience to teach the interns."

"Well, didn't someone teach you?" Rachel asked.

Marley shrugged her shoulders. "I'm a bit of a lone wolf."

Rachel nodded and saw Jesse watching the two of them out of the corner of her eye. She leaned in closer to Marley and dropped her voice. "Is it me, or does Jesse have a thing for you?"

"He just got divorced. He's got a thing for everyone. I'm going to talk to the girl's parents; let me know when she wakes up."

"Will do." Rachel said, watching Marley walk into the waiting room.

"And when that didn't work, I used to, um, put my mom's cake spatulas down my throat." Mercedes told Nina in her hospital room. "So, do you want to talk to me? I know it's hard to say out loud, I know, but I'm here for you."

Nina took a deep breath in. "I've been making myself throw up since I was twelve. It's so hard now and I have to dig really deep just to gag."

Mercedes nodded knowingly. "And that's when you lost hold of the fork."

Nina wiped at the corners of her eyes. "I really want to stop but I can't."

Mercedes tried to reach for Nina's hands. This time, though, Nina didn't pull them away. "I'm going to help you, Nina. We're going to get you help. I promise."

In a different spot of the hospital, Candy opened one of the supply closets and stepped inside with Artie. "So, this will be my first time and I just…I don't want to look stupid, you know? I mean, I've read things and I've watched things, but I'm afraid if I do anything wrong, she's going to laugh at me."

"You talk too much Artie." Candy said, cutting him off.

"I've been told that before."

Candy smiled. "But you're cute. And you helped me. So I'm going to help you. I'm going to give you a lap dance. A really good lap dance. A two hundred dollar lap dance on the house." Candy pulled out her phone and started scrolling through her music, trying to find the perfect song. Once she found it, she hit play and set it on one of the shelves by where she sat Artie down in a chair.

"You don't have to do that, answering questions will suffice." Artie said, starting to get slightly uncomfortable.

"What did I say about talking, Artie? You won't shut up because you're afraid." Candy started walking towards Artie. "Women don't want men who are afraid, Artie. They want a man who is confident, got it?" She started dancing for him. "See what happens when you're quiet, Artie?"

"So, are you just dancing until you find something to do with your life?" Artie asked.

Candy started shaking her head. "Mood kill, Artie. Tell me I look beautiful."

"You look beautiful." Artie said, almost robotically.

"See," Candy said, running her hands through his hair. "That's how you talk to a woman." She smiled at him. "So, let me ask you something. Do you think you can get me prescriptions? I'd pay for them; they're for my urinary infections. You wouldn't believe how many I get a year from those nasty poles. Our stupid manager never cleans them and each time at the clinic is like a four hour wait just to get a prescription. So if you could help me, that'd be awesome."

"What do you take for them?" Artie asked.

"Usually Sypra…Syp…Sy…" She started mumbling and her eyes went wide.

"Sorry, what was that?" Artie asked as she slumped forward onto him. She started spasming on him. "Uh, help!"

Back in the trauma room with Puck and Finn, things weren't looking well for their patient. "Start the FFP." Finn instructed, trying to figure out the best way to save Eric's life.

"Knock, knock. Is he talking yet?"

"Just mumbling. He's barely conscious." Finn said, glaring at the agent.

"You two guys were on the scene. Did he say anything there?"

"Just a lot of moaning." Puck said, looking up from the ultra sound machine.

"What about the pilot. Can you describe him?"

Finn turned around and glared at the agent again. "Dead."

"Don't be a smart ass. Was he Hispanic or white, or what?"

"White. He was white. And dead." Puck said.

"Alright, did you notice any other drugs on board?"

"It was dark and we're trying to work here, so if you can just wait outside, that would be great." Finn said, starting to snap.

"Hey Finn, look at this." Puck said, keeping the ultra sound wand over a part of the patient's abdomen.

"What's that?" the agent asked.

"It's filling with blood. He's going to need surgery. Jocelyn, I need you to call the OR and prep for a surgery. We're going to go by CT for a quick chest and head." Finn and Puck started to wheel him out.

"You can talk to him after post-OP but it's going to be a few hours. You can go sit in the waiting room, it's over that way." Puck said, gesturing towards the waiting room.

"Hey, you got your security badge? I forgot mine." Finn said.

"Do not fret or be blue, this badge will get us through." Puck said, smiling at Finn as they started towards the CT lab.

The agent picked up his cell phone and made a call. "Yeah, don't worry, he's in my custody. I said don't worry; I got it."

"Um, I'm not really sure what happened." Artie said when Kurt got into the supply closet.

"Okay, just keep your hands up for me." Kurt said to Candy. He let go of her hands, and one of her arms limply fell to the ground. "She's having a stroke. She's paralyzed on the right side."

"Oh god." Artie said.

"Hey, why did you guys page me to the – whoa, what happened to her?" Sam asked, coming into the supply closet with a medical basket.

"She-she fell." Artie stuttered.

"She fell?" Sam asked incredulously. "Well, let's get her up."

"We're going to take care of you, Candy." Artie said as the three of them lifted her up to put her on the stretcher. "I'll get the door."

Across the hospital, Mercedes left Nina's room, where she was met by Nina's parents. "What happened to her? Is she okay?"

"We got the fork out. Now she's a little sleepy from the medicine we gave her, but she'll be fine."

"So when can we take her home?" Nina's father asked.

Mercedes took a deep breath in. "I actually don't think that she should go home yet."

Nina's parents looked shocked. "Why?" her father asked.

"Nina has an eating disorder. Bulimia. And she needs to be treated with inpatient psychiatric care."

"Our daughter's not crazy." Her father started getting defensive.

"I didn't say she was. She just needs…"

"She just wants to be skinnier. Do you know any teenage girls that don't?" Her mother looked right at Mercedes when she said this.

"She's not missing school because her doctor is overreacting." Her father agreed with her mother.

"She swallowed a fork." Mercedes said, feeling her patience get tested.

"She's just stressed from school. If we need help, we'll call our priest. Now, where do I sign to take her home?" her father asked as Mercedes looked at them with a terrified look on her face.

"Hey guys, is this a social visit or strictly business?" Jacob Ben Israel asked when Puck and Finn got to the CT lab.

"What do you think, Jacob?" Puck asked as they wheeled Eric into the CT lab.

"That was sarcasm." Jacob said, following them in there. "Next time I'll text you with an emoticon."

"A little grumpy tonight, Jacob?" Finn asked, lowering the railings on the side of the hospital bed.

"I'm hyperglycemic and I forgot my candy bar."

Puck fished around in his scrubs pocket. "Here's a five for the vending machine, knock yourself out when we're done."

"It only takes ones." Jacob complained. Puck walked past him and took his five dollars back.

"What?" Jacob complained. He went back into the booth. "How about some tunes? Let's do some old school." He pushed a button on his phone and Bust A Move started playing, triggering another flashback for Finn.

"_Hey, Puckerman, let's see your moves. See if you can keep up with Hollingsworth's finest." Thad said when the guys had downtime one evening in Afghanistan. Bust A Move started playing on the CD player that one of the guys had, and Thad started awkwardly dancing. "Alright, you're up, Puckerman."_

_Finn grabbed Puck's shoulders and turned him towards the video camera. It was one of Finn's prized possessions and he used it to send Rachel videos of life in the camp when he had time. "Hey, Rach, this is Puckerman, M.D. He's a newbie so," he dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "Don't expect too much."_

_Puck, much to everyone's surprise, started break dancing in tune to beat. Everyone started clapping for him and cheering. "This dance floor is now special, sending love to you Miss Rachel." Puck said to the video camera. _

"_Rachel's going to fall for this guy." Thad said to Finn. "She's never going to marry you."_

"_You're engaged!" Puck said with a smile on his face._

"_Well, if she says yes. I'm going to ask her when I get back." Finn said as a bomb went off right by their camp._

"Finn. Finn. Finn?" Puck asked, gently touching Finn's shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"A little help?" Puck asked, motioning to the patient.

"Yeah, let's do this." Finn said as they moved the patient to the CT bed.

"The MRI was clean." Kurt said to Artie as they wheeled Candy to a hospital room.

"That doesn't make any sense. What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know." Kurt said, shutting the folder with her lab results in it. "So, Artie, give it up. What happened?"

"Uh, she was dancing and…"

"Dancing?" Sam asked. "Well, what were you doing in the…" Sam trailed off as a surprised expression dawned on his face. "You paid her for a lap dance!" Him and Kurt started laughing.

"Look, can we just find out why she's stroking out?" Artie asked, trying to get the attention off of him.

"Maybe it was all your built up virgin pressure." Sam said, trying to make a joke.

"It's not funny." Artie said, pointing at the two of them.

"Sam's joke isn't funny, you getting a lap dance in a supply closet is hysterical." Kurt said.

"Look, next time I'll cover for you. God knows Kurt can keep a secret too." Sam said, earning a strange look from Kurt.

"There's not going to be a next time. You guys aren't going to tell Rachel, are you? About the lap dance, right?"

"I don't think Candy gyrating on you is connected to her condition. Let's just get her in the room and run some tests." Kurt said, wheeling her into the room.

Back at the nurses' station, Jesse was on the phone with the police department. "Well, you can send the detective over but he'll have a long wait. From what I understand, the patient is getting a scan then heading over to the OR. Besides, we already have a DEA agent here." Agent Osborn, upon hearing his job being referenced on the phone, stopped walking towards the desk. "You want to talk to him? Okay, hold on." Jesse turned towards Agent Osborn. "This is a detective with the SAPD. They say they may wait awhile before they get here but they want to talk to you."

"No. God no. No, my boss will kill me if I get involved with the locals. So, no."

"I don't want to get in the middle of your crap." Jesse said. "You hear me?" Jesse rolled his eyes and went back to the phone call. "Hey, listen we're really busy here. You can handle all your jurisdictional stuff when you get here. Well then, talk to him tomorrow. I've got to go."

With Jesse's back turned away from Agent Osborn, he decided now would be the best time to take one of the security badges off of someone's coat and get to the CT labs. He snuck behind the desk and yanked someone's badge and quickly walked towards the security doors to go back towards the labs.

Jesse hung up the phone and turned around, wanting to talk more with the agent, but couldn't find him anyway. He raised an eyebrow, than shook his head, deciding to think nothing of it.

Agent Osborn headed towards the elevators. Luckily for him, there was one that was already on the floor. All he had to do was swipe the pin pad with the stolen ID badge, and he'd be on his way to talk to the patient and the doctors.

"Why can't you put a psychiatric hold on Nina's case?" Mercedes asked as the elevator doors holding Osborn slid shut.

"Is she an adult?" Marley asked as the two of them walked around together.

"No, she's sixteen!"

"Is she suicidal?" Marley asked, remaining calm as Mercedes started working herself up in a tizzy.

"No, not yet."

"Okay, if she is not suicidal, homicidal, or gravely disabled…" Marley started to say. "Just so you understand, there is a big stigma against psychiatric care in the Latino community. They tend not to seek it out. The best I can do is offer outpatient resources."

Mercedes shook her head. "It's just so messed up." she yelled.

Rachel, overhearing that there was a commotion brewing, started walking towards them.

"Trust me, I get it." Marley said, trying to calm Mercedes down.

"Mercedes, you need to show Doctor Rose some respect. Yelling at an attending isn't going to help your patient."

"You're right, I'm sorry." Mercedes said. "Is there anything you can do as the night shift chief?"

"No, and you need to learn that the hardest part of residency is that you can't save everyone."

"So what do I tell her? Because I promised her I was going to help her."

"I already spoke to the parents. I can try again but I wouldn't get my hopes up."

Mercedes sniffed and nodded her head. "Okay."

At the other side of the hospital, Kurt and Sam were walking around. "So, what did you mean by Kurt can keep a secret?" he asked. "We cool?"

Sam asked, disposing of soiled bedsheets. "Yeah, we cool."

"You sure? Because I thought I heard a little edge in there."

"Okay, I know this sounds…wow, I was about to say gay. Look, man, I just I don't care, I really don't. Blaine seems like a really cool guy and I'm glad he's feeling better…"

"Just spit it out." Kurt said.

"Fine. I was pissed you didn't think you could tell me. I still am. I mean, come on, it's me. I would never turn my back on you. Ever. And just knowing that you felt you had to shoulder this and live a lie around me, that kills me. I just thought we were better friends than that, that's all."

"You're right." Kurt said in a serious voice. Cracking a smile, he said, "That did sound a little gay. Come on, you can't take it personally. It's not about you. It was about me. It was my thing. Okay? So we cool?"

"Yeah, we're good man. Anyway, about that Mercedes situation. Now that's she's done bearding for you, are you going to help me out or not?"

"I've been trying. Maybe if you stopped playing around so much you'd be getting somewhere."

"Playing? I have not been playing. I'm not a player; I just crush a lot." The two of them laughed and kept walking around the hospital.

"The OR called back. They're ready for him." Jacob Ben Israel said, going back into the CT room to talk to Finn and Puck.

"Alright, we're moving." Finn said. "A little help, Jacob?" Jacob joined the two of them in getting the patient from the MRI bed to the hospital gurney so he can get the surgery done.

"Hey, is he talking yet?" a gruff voice asked, coming into the CT room. The three of them turned around and saw it was the DEA agent from downstairs that had been bugging them all night.

"Look, I'm sorry, this is a restricted area and we need to get him to the OR." Puck said, trying to get the agent off their backs again.

"No one's going anywhere."

"Is that so?" Finn asked, walking towards the agent. The agent lifted the gun and hit Finn in the left temple with the butt of the gun and he stumbled backwards.

"Think I'm playing, Doc?"

"It's okay, it's okay." Puck said, trying to get the agent to calm down.

"Get him talking."

"It's not that easy." Finn said, starting to get back up from the fall.

"Just do it or I'm going to kill everyone."

"You don't have to point that." Puck said, still trying to calm the guy down. This was not a situation the hospital needed to be in.

"Just do it." The agent started moving the gun around, pointing it at the three of them. The agent then shot Jacob right in the forehead. "How's that?"

Finn and Puck went over to where Jacob was laying on the floor, bleeding out. The DEA agent stepped towards the patient, who looked at him with a weird expression on his face.

"He's dead." Puck whispered, unable to find a pulse.

"Well, now I have your attention." The agent sent Puck and Finn a creepy smile. "We need to lock the door and block it. No one is getting into this room." He held the gun up and pointed it at the two of them. "I suggest you get moving."

"He has a belly full of bleed, we need to get him to the OR now." Finn said, pushing one of the filing cabinets against the door.

"Just shut up and get over there against the wall. And turn around. I'm going to have a little conversation with him, then I'll be on my way." He started walking towards the patient.

"Oh god, Jacob…" Finn said, turning around to look at their colleague dead on the floor.

"I know but we need to do what he says so we're not next over there." Puck whispered back.

"Hey, shut up over there." The agent turned around and pointed the gun at them.

"I'm sorry." The patient struggled to get the words out.

"What?"

"I'm…sorry…" he tried again.

"Yeah, you're damn right you're sorry. What are you trying to do, double cross me? Tell me where our money is."

"Bryansville."

"Huh?" he asked again.

"Bryansville." After he got the words out, he drifted off and the heart monitor went crazy.

"Hey, wake up you bastard." The agent started shaking him. "What's the address? What the hell is wrong with him? Get over here and make him talk." Puck checked his pulse and groaned internally. It was not looking good for him and Finn. "Wake him up."

"He's losing his pulse. If you ever want him to speak again, he needs an OR. Now."

"He's not going to the OR, I need to him talk. For a minute. And then I'll be on my way." The agent started waving his gun around.

"You don't understand." Finn said, stepping away from the wall. The agent turned the gun on him. "His blood pressure has dropped too low for him to wake up."

"No, _you_ don't understand. I vouched for this piece of crap. If I don't get what I need from him, I'm a dead man. So if he dies, you two are going to join your friend over there. I got nothing to lose, pal."

Back in Candy's hospital room, Kurt, Sam, and Artie were trying to figure out what was going on with her. "She had all the symptoms of a left MCA stroke but her MRI was normal." Kurt told Rachel, who was just entering the room.

"And she collapsed as she was leaving?" Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Actually, um—"

"Yes, in the hallway by the storage room." Kurt said, giving Artie a look.

"Yeah, I think she was looking for the restroom." Sam said.

"And what's her status now?" Rachel asked.

"The initial stroke symptoms are gone but her speech is still slightly intermittent." Artie said.

"And this all started with a fall on her neck?" Rachel asked, trying to make sense of the case.

"Yes, she fell off her pole." Artie said. "Apparently, they are very dirty and very slippery."

"Sounds like someone's been doing his homework." Rachel said, turning to face the three men. "It sounds like she has an artery dissection." Rachel turned to Candy. "That means there's a tear in an artery that's making a flap, and that flap is making it impossible for blood to get to the brain."

"So we get a CT, start her on heparin, and keep checking on her." Kurt said, making sure he was doing it right.

"Exactly." Rachel said. She turned back to Candy. "We're going to take care of you. You'll be okay." She gave Candy a smile and left the room.

"Hey, bud, it's not your fault." Sam said to Artie. "If you hadn't gotten the lap dance, she may have stroked out while driving. You're like our little virgin hero."

Back in the CT room, Finn and Puck were trying to work things out with the patient while having a gun pointed at them. "What's wrong with his breathing?"

"The crush injury to the throat must have caused swelling."

"Well, fix it."

"That's why we need the OR." Puck said, trying not to lose his temper.

"You're not going to an OR. I'm not taking that chance."

"We know." Finn said, trying to calm the agent down. "We need to get a tube into his airway." Finn said to Puck, who started looking around for something they could use.

"We have a tube, but we don't have a scope. There's no way we'll be able to do this without a scope." Puck said, looking at the supplies that were in the CT room.

The machine started beeping again and Finn looked around the room for something they could use as an improvisional scope. "I told you, he needs the OR." Puck repeated for the umpteenth time. "He's going into respiratory failure; his airway is closed. We need to breath for him."

Finn broke a light from the CT scanner off. "We can use them for the scope. It'll act as the light so we can see what we're doing."

"It just might work." Puck said. "Hey, turn down the light." The agent froze. "Turn down the light if you want to talk to the guy." Keeping the gun pointed at them, the agent moved towards the light switch and turned them off.

Finn worked the best with what he had, and the agent was being less than helpful, as he kept repeating that Finn better not lose him. "Alright, I got it." Finn said, pulling the light out as Puck started pumping oxygen into his throat.

Back in Nina's hospital room, she was enjoying a cup of Jell-O, fully knowing that she'd been getting the help she needed soon. She heard her hospital door open and smiled when she saw Mercedes walk in. "So when do I get my room upstairs? You're going to come visit, right?"

Mercedes frowned slightly. "I'm sorry, Nina. Your parents won't let us admit you and they want to take you home."

Nina's nostrils flared. "But, you can force them. You're the doctor."

"I can't. I did everything I could think of to make it happen. But it didn't work."

"But you promised." Nina said.

"I shouldn't have. But I can still help you. You can come here when I have my shifts and you can call me even when I'm off duty."

Nina pushed her tray away. "I'm feeling a little tired, can you leave please?" She turned to her side and shut her eyes. Mercedes sighed, but walked to the door and left.

Back in Candy's room, things weren't going all that well. "We need pressure." Kurt said. "Systolic is down to seventy, stats are eighty-eight."

Rachel heard the beeping and ran into the room. "Okay, what's going on?"

"Blood pressure and O-two just cratered." Kurt said. "What did the scan say, was it infection?"

"No, it was completely clear."

"Then what's causing all this?" Artie asked.

"I don't know. I'll get Finn and Puck down here. Start her on oxygen. Molly, I need you to page Finn and Puck and get them down here ASAP."

Things still weren't going well in the CT lab. "Anymore sutures?" Finn asked.

"This is it." Puck said.

"Have you stopped the bleeding?" the agent asked.

Finn pointed to the binder clips holding file folders together. "The clips. From the folders. We can use them to clamp the bleeders."

"Sir, I need you to either bag or pull the clips off the folders." Puck said from where he was standing, pumping oxygen into Eric's mouth from the tube.

"You stay right there and I'll get the clamps."

"This is a mess, Puck." Finn whispered low enough so that the agent wouldn't hear them.

"He's got half of his blood volume in his abdomen and we're out of supplies. He's not going to make it."

The agent slammed the file folders down onto the table next to the two of them. He started pulling the clips off and handed them a few. "This'll have to do." He tossed them at Finn, who barely caught all of them. He started clamping the bleeders when his pager went off. Finn took off one of his gloves to check and see who it was. "They're looking for us." He turned his attention to the agent. "Why don't you just take off?"

"Yeah, okay." He kicked Finn in the side and pulled his hair. "Listen to me. I'm getting very sick of your mouth. Now page them back and tell them everything is cool, you understand me?"

Back in the main part of the hospital, Rachel was standing by Molly, waiting for a response back from Finn or Puck about how long it would be. "They said they're finishing up and should be back soon."

She sighed. "Okay. I'll be in trauma three with Kurt."

At the desk, Jesse was standing around with Marley and Nina's parents as they were signing the discharge papers. "Okay, sign and date here. This says that you understand you are leaving against medical advice." Jesse said to the parents.

"We really wish you'd reconsider. We can get Nina treatment and be in and out of here in a few days." Marley said to the parents in a last ditch effort to get them to let Nina stay and get the help she needed.

"Thank you, but we know our daughter…"

"I need a doctor in here now!" one of the nurses said from Nina's room. Hearing this, Mercedes ran into her room and saw she was convulsing. "I came to get her dressed and found she was unresponsive and hypertensive."

Nina's parents started freaking out and kept screaming at the doctors. Marley looked to her left and saw an open scalpel wrapper. "Oh my God, I think she swallowed a scalpel."

"What?" Mercedes said.

Jesse came into the room. "Molly, get Doctor Berry, please." Molly nodded and followed Jesse out of the room.

"She's going to vomit."

"Get her on her side!" Mercedes yelled as they rolled her to her side, where she started coughing up blood.

"Oh my God, oh my God, my baby!" Nina's mom cried.

"Get them out of here!" Mercedes roared. One of the nurses escorted the parents out while the rest of the team tried to work on saving Nina.

"Her pressure is up." A nurse told Rachel once they got to an OR to get the scalpel out of Nina. "We have two units going in."

Rachel nodded. "Good. Opening the _fundis_ now." The team slowly opened her up. "Suction." Rachel said.

"There it is." Mercedes said. "I see it."

"Easy, Mercedes." Rachel said. Mercedes slowly pulled the scalpel out at an angle and Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. "Nice job."

"Unbelievable." Mercedes said, shaking her head at the bloody scalpel.

"I know. Maybe her parents will finally listen to us when we say she has a problem." Rachel said. Mercedes stuck the scalpel in a surgical bin and helped Rachel go back to sewing her up.

"Rachel, we need you." Sam said, bursting into the OR. "It's Candy."

"Okay. Mercedes, finish sewing her up and run another two units."

"Will do."

Back in the CT room, Puck started doing compressions on the guy's chest.

"Come on, that looks really bad. You need to keep him alive."

"I've got an idea. Puck, hand me those clips." Finn said.

Sam and Rachel entered Candy's room with a crash cart ready. "She didn't respond to the flexors or the high flow of oxygen." Kurt said, updating Rachel to her condition. "Her stats are still in the eighties."

"Okay, send a stat arterial blood gas. We need to know her base. Where's her chart?" Rachel asked, looking around. Kurt handed it to her and she started looking at it. "Where the hell are Finn and Puck? They should have been down here by now."

Sam wiped her artery down with a alcohol wipe and started to take her blood. "Wait, what the heck?" he asked, seeing her blood was brown when it started going into the needle.

"You must have been in the vein. It's way too dark for arterial blood."

"No, I got it in the artery. This doesn't even look like venous blood, it looks like chocolate."

Artie thought to himself for a second. "Go get methylene blue. Now."

"Why?" Rachel asked, completely confused.

"Early, when Candy was giving me a lap dance, she kept mentioning recurring UTIs and having trouble getting in to see a doctor. If she was taking over the counter meds, she could have been taking too much…"

"Causing anemia and the reason her blood is discolored." Kurt finished for him.

"And that would explain the stroke symptoms, the unresponsiveness, and the underoxygenated levels. Okay." Rachel said, coming to terms with what she had just learned.

"That's probably why she fell off the pole in the first place." Kurt said.

Rachel added the new medicine to her IV when Sam got back with it and immediately, her stats started to go back to normal.

"It's working. It's definitely working."

Rachel paused and looked at Artie. "I'm sorry, Artie, did you say lap dance?" She looked around and saw no one was shocked by the news. "Are you getting lap dances in my ER?"

"I need to recheck her vitals." Artie said, moving around Rachel.

"Rachel, I need to see you." Jesse said, coming into the room.

"We are not done with this." Rachel said to Artie before she followed Jesse out of room.

"Finn and Puck have been gone for forty-five minutes." Jesse said to her in a hushed tone.

"They're still not back from radiology?"

"No, and there's a chemical factory explosion coming in, which means this place is going to be swamped in no time."

"I'm going up to check on them." Rachel said, starting for the elevators as Nina's hospital bed was being rolled back to her room.

"Her vitals are stable and we're moving her back to her room after we repaired the damage that was caused by swallowing a scalpel. Is this real enough for you?" Mercedes asked, trying to get a rise out of the parents so they would admit Nina to the hospital.

"What is she doing?" Jesse asked Marley.

"Just let her do it. They need it." Marley replied.

"Your daughter is sick. And if you don't admit her, something like this will happen again."

"Just tell us she'll be okay." Nina's dad asked as her mother started crying.

"We're going to do our best." Mercedes said as she started walking away.

Marley met up with Mercedes and started walking with her. "Pretty ballsy. That's the kind of thing that gets you fired."

"I couldn't help myself." Mercedes said. "I just got so mad."

"Good. There's nothing wrong with being pissed off. Just remember it could cost you your job." Marley gave her a stern look and started walking back to her office.

"Then I guess I'll just get fired a lot." Mercedes mumbled, walking back towards Nina's room.

Rachel made it up to the radiology room and started knocking on the door. "Finn? Open the door."

"Who the hell is that?" the agent asked from the inside.

"Guys, why is this door locked?" Rachel asked, stomping her foot. This is not how she was wanting to spend part of her shift.

"Get the door and make her go away." The agent started waving his gun around again. "And don't do anything stupid."

"What is going on in there?" Rachel asked, getting more and more annoyed with each passing second.

Finn took off his gloves and started walking to the door. He pushed the filing cabinet away and unlocked the door to open it slightly.

"Hey." Finn said, nonchalantly, leaning against the door frame.

"What the hell is going on in here? Why is this door locked?"

"Sorry, Rach, we can't move the guy until we scan him a bunch of times and Jacob needed to go get more contrasts and…"

"Finn, you're bleeding." Rachel said, looking at his forehead, snapping into doctor mode.

"No, it's fine, I just—"

"HEY!" the DEA agent screamed. He pointed the gun at Rachel. "Get in here." He grabbed her by the hand and yanked her into the CT lab.

"Oh my God." She held her hands out to try and stop her from falling when he flung her into the room. Now she understood why it was taking them so long in radiology.

They were being held hostage.

"Don't move. Now close the door and block it." He looked back and forth between Finn and Rachel. "Get against the wall. Now!"

"Okay, okay, I'm going." Rachel said, trying to keep calm.

Puck watched in horror as Rachel was pushed against the wall. Rachel started to take in her surroundings and saw Jacob on the floor. "Oh my God, Jacob!" She went to try and walk over to him.

"Stop moving!" He pushed her against the wall again.

"Hey, hey." Finn said, stepping towards the agent. "Take it easy. It's going to be okay."

Back in the main part of the hospital, they were already beginning to feel the effects from the chemical fire. Patients were coming in from left and right, all with various degrees of burns and other ailments.

"Come on, people, let's clear out the trauma rooms." Molly said.

"I'm setting up each room with intubation tubes and x-rays to move everything a little quicker." Kurt said, getting a nod of approval from Molly.

"Molly, have Rachel page me once she knows the number of patients we're getting." Jesse said, coming up from behind her at the nurses' station.

"I will when she gets back." Molly said.

"She's not back yet?" Jesse said, an edge of panic in his voice.

"Not yet."

"Mr. St. James?" Sam said. "Security is on the line for you."

Jesse took the phone from Sam. "Yes?" He listened to what security was saying on the other end. "I'll pull it up on the ER monitor." He hung up the phone and started watching replay of the events happening the in CT labs, starting with Rachel getting pulled in by the gunmen. "Son of a bitch." He grabbed the phone and dialed 911. "Yes, this is Jesse St. James, San Antonio Memorial. I need to call in a hostage situation."

Back in radiology, Puck was once again doing chest compressions to try and get the guy to come back to life. But things weren't looking well for the three doctors stuck with the agent. "This guy is dead." Puck whispered.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Rachel asked, feeling like she was about to cry.

"Rachel, look at me." Finn said softly. When she didn't do that, he repeated what he said with a slight edge to his voice. "We need him to think he's alive. We have to trick him."

"Hey, is he dead? Because he looks dead."

"No, he's not dead." Puck said, continuing to do chest compressions.

"No? Then why is that thing still beeping? Huh? And why are you pumping his chest. That means he has no pulse. Do you think I'm stupid?"

"We're working on him. With the pumping, we're trying to get the blood to go from his abdomen up to his brain. I need you to get me that red bag over there." Finn pointed. The agent looked warily over there. "Give me the bag if you want him to talk."

As the agent went over to get the bag, Finn took the heart rate monitor off of the guy's finger and held it in his hand. "Here's your bag." The agent handed it to him and Finn "accidentally" dropped it.

"Oh, shoot."

"Are you kidding me?" the agent asked.

Rachel raised her hands. "It's okay. I've got it. Everyone calm down." Rachel bent down to get it, slipping on the finger measure as she grabbed the red bag. "See, everything is fine."

Puck pointed to the monitor. "It's working. We stemmed the bleeding."

"Okay. But he's still not talking."

"He'll talk later. He needs some time—"

"I don't have time."

"Look, I need to clamp off the aorta to get blood to his brain. That will wake him up for a few minutes, and then you can talk to him."

The agent pointed his gun at the three of them. "Alright, you have five more minutes."

"That's perfect." Finn said, watching as he started to step away to answer a call on his phone.

"Ambulances are two minutes out, people." Molly said when she got a phone call from the EMTs.

Kurt walked over to Jesse. "Hey, what the hell is going on?"

"Finn, Puck, and Rachel are in a hostage situation."

Kurt's facial expression went from cool and collected to completely frantic. "What?"

"Listen, I need you to step up. Brody is on his way in and we have a lot of victims around so right now it is on you."

Kurt nodded and turned to address to night shift staff. "Uh, Mercedes, Artie, here. You're in trauma three, you're in trauma four. Whatever comes in, you assist on. You're going to see a lot of scary things tonight, so you need to know that the patient is always more scared than you are."

"Got it." Artie said. Mercedes nodded and they took off to their respective zones.

"Marley, I need you to help with intake and triage. You did a great job when we had the storm and I need you to do the same now."

"Whatever you need." Marley said. "And Kurt, you've got this."

Jesse turned around to see the SWAT team entering the building. "Commander." He went over to greet them. "There are three doctors and one technician in the radiology suite." He enlarged a picture on an iPad. "This is the man I think may have them."

"My men are ready. We're going to have to shut down this hospital!" the commander said, looking around at everyone.

"We can't do that. There's a huge chemical fire. You shut us down, people have no place to go. You can close down the second floor only."

"But this isn't safe."

Kurt came up behind Jesse. "Look, we're the only trauma hospital for ten counties. You have to play by our rules on this one."

The commander sighed. "Fine. Second floor only. Lead the way."

Jesse started walking with them. "Around the corner, up the elevator. I'll be there in just a minute."

The night shift staff watched with panic as the SWAT team moved through the hospital lobby. Kurt tapped Jesse on the back. "I think you've got to tell people what's going on."

"Okay." Jesse said, walking towards where the doctors and nurses were gathered at the nurses' station. "Oh man. Um, I'm not going to lie to you. There is a possible hostage situation with Finn, Puck, and Rachel." He stopped when he heard the gasps from everyone who was gathered around. "The SWAT team is here to take care of it. Okay, now just listen to me. No matter you are feeling, no matter how much we are worried about them, we have a job to do. I know it's hard but everybody is depending on us. So let's focus, dig deep, and treat these people like we would our own families, okay? Let's go." Jesse said, clapping his hands as he walked away.

There was a flurry of action in the ER as some of the EMTs started to unload patients from the ambulances.

"Alright, let's do this people. We're on." Kurt said, stepping up to help out. "Molly, get started on triage, and I want all hands on deck." He started directing the EMTs to the different trauma rooms that were set up.

In a different part of the hospital, Jesse stepped off of an elevator on the second floor where he was greeted by SWAT team members. "Mr. St. James, I need you to evacuate this area." the leader of the SWAT team said. "It's almost go time." The two of them stepped towards the computers that were set up so the team members could see inside the MRI room. "We have eyes on the subject."

Jesse nodded. "Nothing's happening until you review the plan with me. Those are my guys in there. And I need a medical team standing by."

"Okay, we're starting with flash bangs." Jesse looked up to see a SWAT team member climbing into the ceiling.

"What about my team?" he asked.

"We'll do everything we can to keep them safe."

Down in the MRI room, the fake DEA agent was stepping away from the now dead patient on their makeshift operating table to make a phone call. "Listen," he said over the phone. "He's not going to make it. I just want to get the hell out of here, alright? So have a car ready for me."

"He's going to figure out this guy is dead any minute." Puck said to Finn and Rachel.

"Jesse has to know something is going on." Rachel said, looking between the two of them.

"And if he does, we're in here, so just be ready." Finn said.

Puck raised an eyebrow and Rachel turned towards Finn. "What does that mean?"

"We can't just stand here. He killed Jacob. He's not going to let us go."

"Okay, listen up, change of plans." The fake agent came back in the room. "You," he said, pointing at Rachel. "You are coming with me. Come on, come on."

Rachel looked back and forth between Finn and Puck.

"Take me." Finn said.

"COME ON!" the agent said, clearly getting impatient. "Come on, missy, come on. Now"

"Okay, okay." Rachel said, stepping away from the body with her hands in the air. "Just…tell me where you're taking me." She slid the heart rate monitor off her finger and quickly handed it over to Finn, who slid it on his finger.

"There's no time for that. We just have to get going." The agent moved next to Rachel and yanked her arm. He looked up and saw the ceiling tile was moving. "What the hell is that?"

Finn looked up and saw something was about to be dropped in the room. He lunged towards Rachel, who yelled out a loud "No!" as smoke started filling the room. The agent was taken by surprise and accidently fired a shot as he was trying to protect himself.

The lights in the MRI room started to flicker as Finn blinked his eyes, experiencing another flashback to when he was in Afghanistan and his older brother Thad was shot.

Able to overcome the flashback, he got up and lunged towards the fake agent and knocked him off balance as members of the SWAT team came into the room. Finn knocked the guy against the shelves of medical supplies and he crashed to the floor. Finn punched him once and went to punch him again before his arm was held back by a SWAT team member and he was pushed against the wall. He watched as other members of the SWAT team pulled the fake agent's arms behind his back and handcuffed him. "Rachel?" Finn asked, watching the guy get cuffed. "Rachel?" Finn repeated a little harder.

Rachel raised her hand from the corner she was sitting at and lifted her hands from the back of her neck. "I'm okay!"

Finn went over to Rachel and held out a hand to help her stand up. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Rachel looked up at him with wide eyes. "I-I think so." She took a deep and shuddering breath. "Finn, I-I-I'm sorry. I didn't know what was going on in here and…you saved me."

"Don't worry about it. We're safe now."

Rachel nodded. "Thank you. For trying to keep us safe."

Finn breathed a sigh of relief and looked straight ahead to Puck, who had a weird expression on his face. "Puck?" Finn asked. Rachel's head snapped up to the direction that Puck was at. The two of them saw blood soaking through his scrubs top and Puck collapsed to the floor. Rachel stretched out her arms, seeing she was closest to Puck, in an effort to try and break his landing, or at least make it easier for him to get to the ground.

"Puck, no, no, no, no, no!" Rachel said, flipping Puck so that he was laying on his back.

"Puck!" Finn said, trying to get him situated on the ground. "Puck!"

Jesse came running into the MRI room to see what was going on. "Somebody get a crash cart!" he heard Finn say as he looked around the room. His head snapped towards the direction of Finn's voice and his eyes widened when he saw Puck on the ground, bleeding from his stomach. He stepped closer as Finn applied pressure to the bullet hole wound and Rachel held Puck's head to try and keep him steady. She looked up at Jesse with tears in her eyes.

"Puck!" Finn yelled again as Puck eye's started to close.

_**TO BE CONTINUED**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: Save Me**

**Author's Note: So, this is the final chapter based on season one! Thank you for all of your support on this story. The flashbacks that occurs is in italics.**

"Puck!" Finn yelled out as they were transporting him to the pre-OR from the radiology suite.

"Puck, it's okay, we've got you." Rachel said as she was pumping oxygen for him.

"Come on, Puck, stay with me, buddy." Finn said.

Puck tried his hardest to stay focused, but he was finding it hard. The lights of the hospital were looking incredibly blurry to him, and he didn't know how much longer he could hold on.

"Get out of the way!" Sam said as the three of them pushed past the doctors and nurses. They got to the closest pre-OR – the one meant for Eric – and Sam kicked the door open to get them started on Puck.

Back in the main lobby of the hospital, people were freaking out, trying to get more information about loved ones who may have been in the chemical explosion. "I know, we will get to you as soon as we can." Marley said to the concerned loved ones. "I know this is hard for everyone and I can only imagine what you are going through. We are trying everything we can right now to identify who is here. The victims have been spread out over several hospitals, so if you just bear with us, the nurses will take down your information and we will let you know what we know, when we know, okay?"

Marley took a deep breath and turned around, almost running into Jesse. "What a mess."

"I know. Everybody needs an answer and I just don't have it. How's Puck?"

Jesse sighed. "It's not looking good. Finn is with him and Brody is on his way in. I just got off the phone with Jacob's family and they'll be here soon. And when I'm done speaking with them, I'll come back here and help you with them."

"Okay. Thanks, that would be great." Marley said.

"Mr. St. James," the commander of the SWAT team said when he found Jesse in the crowds. "We've cleared everything. Detective Gonzales is going to run point from here. He's with the shooter right now."

Jesse nodded. "Okay."

"Wish it would have played out a little bit differently."

"Thank you for all your help." Jesse said. The commander nodded and the SWAT team left.

Back in Puck's pre-OR, Finn was trying his hardest to save Puck's life. "I need eight units of B positive blood." Finn said to one of the nurses.

"Sam, send a trauma panel, and set up for intubation." Rachel said, to which Sam responded with a morose got it. "Did you call Brody?" Rachel asked a nurse.

"About ten minutes ago. He's on his way in."

"We still need to call his wife, Quinn. She needs to be here now."

"I'm on it." One of the nurses sent them a sympathetic smile and walked out of the pre-OR.

"I need a central line kit." Rachel said, grabbing a towel to wipe up some of the blood.

Finn started tapping Puck's stomach to find the bullet. "Hand me a mag three."

"I can't help but think that maybe if I had tried to figure out what you were saying to me—" Rachel started to say.

"No, no, no, you couldn't have known." Finn said.

"Maybe Puck doesn't get shot because you were trying to protect me."

"Rachel, I was never going to lose you. The guy is a scumbag and he shot Jacob in cold blood. You are not responsible for any of this. Do you understand?"

Rachel gave him a small nod and Jesse entered the pre-OR. "Guys, I know this is going to be awkward, but the shooter needs medical attention."

"Screw him." Rachel said.

"That's too bad." Finn said in agreement.

"I know how you feel—"

"No you don't." Rachel snapped.

"You're right, I don't." Jesse started to say. "But we have to treat him."

"Well, send Kurt." Rachel said, trying to avoid anything to deal with the shooter.

"Kurt is overwhelmed with the factory victims, Artie and Mercedes are too inexperienced to do it alone. Look, under normal circumstances, I'd be sending you home, Rachel. You're the attending, you have to do this."

Rachel looked over at Finn, who sighed. "I'm okay here and Brody's on his way in. When you're done with him, come back here." Rachel nodded and ripped off her surgical protection.

In the main part of the hospital, Kurt was busy with the influx of new patients. "Is this a new burn victim?" he asked an incoming EMT.

"Forty year old female, second and third degree burns. BP is sixty systolic and her oxygen is low."

Kurt pointed to one of the trauma rooms. "Trauma three is ready. Mercedes, Artie, you're with me."

"We gave her a dose of morphine for the pain." the EMT said.

"Okay get ready. Very careful, people. On my count. One, two, three." They lifted her off of the gurney and onto the hospital bed.

Rachel came into the trauma room where they were working. "Artie I need you to come with me."

"Sure, Rachel." Artie said, following her out of the trauma room.

"Wait, how's Puck?" Kurt asked.

Rachel swallowed. "It's not good. Finn's with him now and Brody is on his way."

Rachel and Artie walked down the hallway into the room with the shooter, who was grunting in pain. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me." he said when he saw Rachel come into the room.

"Thank you." Rachel said quietly to the nurse.

"It really hurts, my neck."

"Yeah, I bet it does." Rachel said harshly.

"It really hurts."

"Shut up." Rachel said glaring at him.

"I'm Detective Gonzales, SAPD. You got anything on Milo's condition that I can tell my boss?"

Rachel looked at the clipboard. "Yeah. It looks like blunt force trauma to the neck, zone two."

"Right, from Doctor Hudson's struggle. How did that go down?"

Rachel now turned her glare to the detective. "He had a gun pointed at me, he was going to take me with him, Finn stopped him."

"Pretty ballsy guy to do that. And a little reckless, we were about to come in."

"We didn't know you were out there." She sighed and turned to Artie. "What do you think?"

"I think Finn did the right thing." Artie said without missing a beat.

"No, about this guy." Rachel said. "But good answer."

"Right, um, we need a scan to look for carotid artery injury. He may need a stint or surgical repair."

"Exactly. So get him the scan and if it comes back positive, put him in the queue for surgery." She sent one more glare at the shooter. "But he has to wait." she spat.

"Just to be clear here, doctor, Milo is going to be a key witness in a few other cases. So it's very important that you keep him alive."

"We needed Jacob alive. We need Puck alive. And all of those people out there that did nothing and got themselves caught in an explosion, _they _need to be alive too. So he can wait behind the rest of them."

"Is she really the only doctor." the shooter asked Artie.

Back in the main lobby, Jesse was addressing the called in staff. "For all of you who came in to help, thank you. Now I know you all are worried. Puck was wounded and he's in surgery. I'm also very sad to inform you that Jacob was shot. He didn't make it. Again, this has been a brutal night, but it's not over. We can say a prayer for Jacob and Puck and let's get back to what we have to do. We'll get through this together. Thank you." Jesse said, finishing the address to everyone.

When Brody arrived at the hospital, he went straight to the pre-OR. "Rachel, are you okay?" he asked her.

"We'll talk later."

"What do we have?" Brody asked.

"Single GSW to the abdomen, pressure's borderline, fast scans show blood pooling behind the liver."

"His pressure's dropping!" Sam called out, sending everyone's attention back to Puck.

"Alright, we need to start operating on him now!" Brody said.

Rachel looked at his stats. "Systolic's down to forty, he's bleeding out."

"We're going to need another eight units." Brody called out.

"Brody, I'm scrubbing in with you." Finn said as they pushed open the doors to the pre-OR to get him to the actual OR.

"Somebody hit the elevator!" Rachel called out as they hurried to get Puck to the elevator so they could start operating on him.

"What happened?" Kurt asked, seeing Puck on his way to the OR. He was ignored as everyone started running towards the elevators to start his surgery.

In Puck's OR room, it was filled with beeps coming from all the different machines. "Pressure's down to sixty." the nurse said.

"I still can't see what's bleeding." Brody said, poking around inside of Puck to try and find the bleeder. "No more retraction, please. Okay, I need you to place a running suture right beneath my clamp." Brody said as he kept working on Puck. "God, what a mess."

Finn took a deep breath and did what Brody said to do before he was hit with flashbacks of not only what had just happened, but also flashbacks to Afghanistan.

"_Hey Puck, this son of a bitch here is my brother and platoon leader, Captain Thad Hudson."_

"_Yeah, but you forgot about tougher, cooler, and better looking, and kicked your ass a million times." Thad said, coming up to greet the newest member of their platoon. _

"Finn, Finn!" Brody called, trying to get his attention. "Suture."

"Yeah, I got it, I got it." Finn said, trying to shake the flashback.

Back in the trauma center of the hospital, Jesse was talking to Nurse Molly about patient identification. "We have to identify patients from them. If a patient is unresponsive when they come in, try to find some ID that could help identify them to loved ones."

"We're on it and we're cross referencing with the other area hospitals."

"Perfect." Jesse said as he started walking away.

"Is there any word on Puck?"

Jesse turned around slowly. "He's still in surgery. I promise I'll make an announcement as soon as I hear anything."

"Thanks."

"I just checked in." Rachel said from her spot at the nurses' station. "It's still touch and go."

"Hey, the shooter's scans came back positive. There's a small tear in the carotid."

"Are his vitals stable?" Rachel asked, going back to the clipboard she was writing something on.

"For now. There's a hematoma plug in the hole. I'll get him to the OR."

"No, the OR's are full so he's just going to have to wait for interventional radiology for an endoscopic repair." She finished writing on the clipboard and started walking away.

"Rachel," Jesse said, stopping her. "I know this is a difficult situation, but you have to treat him like every other patient."

"He's not like every other patient."

"I hired you as interim chief of staff because you're the kind of person that does the right thing." Jesse said, making Rachel roll her eyes. "I know it's not easy, especially in this case, but it's the job."

Rachel sighed. "Artie. Do an OR set up. I'm going to repair the artery myself."

"In the trauma room? Down here?"

"Surgeons are swamped, IR is going to take forever…it's a temporary measure but it will save his life. The hematoma isn't going to be a band-aid for long."

"Thank you." Jesse said to her before he started walking away.

Back in Puck's OR, things were still a little dicey.

That is, until Finn found the bullet. "Got it. It just missed the aorta." He pulled the bullet out gently and put it in a steel cup.

"Alright, let's place another silk. Sponge stick." Brody said as he started to go to work repairing more of the damage. "Alright, time to remove this clamp. Moment of truth."

"The sutures are holding." Finn said and breathed a sigh of relief. "Field is holding dry."

"Finn, I can get him closed up here if you want to take a break."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm fine."

Brody nodded at him once. "Okay."

Back in one of the trauma rooms, Kurt and Mercedes were treating the woman with burns all over her body. "Alright, we got her intubated, now let's get her some relief. I have her on Dilaudid pushes and she needs aggressive fluids." He waited for some form of response from Mercedes. "Mercedes, are you with me?"

"Yeah. Just with Puck in the OR and Jacob…"

"I know it's terrible and we all want to be out there helping Puck, but we're in here. I don't want to be a hard ass, but you have to focus."

Mercedes sighed. "Okay."

In the other trauma room, Rachel was trying to perform the surgery on the shooter with the detective breathing down her back, watching her every move. "How's he doing? He's going to make it, right?"

"He's lost a lot of blood, but we're almost done." She turned to Artie. "Release the proximal clamp."

"Whoa, it's not holding!" Artie said as blood started gushing from his neck.

"It's fine, Artie. He just needs an extra suture."

"Do you need help, doctor?" one of the nurses asked. "Should I call for Doctor Weston?"

"I've got it." Rachel said, doing another suture. "Everybody just…" Rachel took a deep breath to calm herself down. "Artie, watch what I do. Add another suture and tie it off. Now we can remove the clamp." Rachel said, removing the clamp without any bleeding. "See, it's all under control." She looked up at the detective. "When we're finished, feel free to put the cuffs back on. He'll be awake shortly and in a lot of pain."

"That's no skin off my nose."

"Look, I've done my job. Now you do yours. No deals. He goes to prison."

"Count on it."

In the main lobby, the television set was turned to a news report about the explosion. "Reporting live where a fertilizer explosion has claimed the lives of at least two people and injured many more. Right now, emergency responders are still rescuing people from inside the building and victims are being taken to a number of local hospitals, including San Antonio Memorial."

"Any idea how Puck is doing?" Marley asked Sam at the nurses' station.

"All I know this that Puck just got out of surgery. There hasn't been any complications so far, so…"

"Thank you and try and keep the updates coming." Marley said, walking away as she scribbled something down on a clipboard.

Meanwhile, in Puck's hospital room, Finn was trying to get him to wake up. "Puck. Puck." He frowned and tried one more time a little louder. "Puck."

Puck blinked and opened his eyes. "You're not going to kiss me are you?" he asked, his voice incredibly hoarse.

"Yeah, try and stop me." Finn said, kissing him on the forehead. "So, all things considered here…"

"Yeah. Jacob, though. I can't believe it."

"That's going to be a hard one to forget."

"How's Rachel?" Puck asked.

"Shaken. She had to work on Milo."

Puck's facial expression changed. "What?"

"Carotid artery injury. I wish I killed him." Finn said.

"I wish you killed him before he shot me." Puck said. "I have three kids. That scared the crap out of me, man. I almost pissed myself. And then those flashbacks…" Finn froze when Puck mentioned them. "It took me back to the war you know?"

"You ever think about that sniper that shot Thad?" Finn asked, his mind going back to the war.

"_Get him out here stat and try to clamp off the bleeder." Puck said to Finn as they dragged Thad out from the compound. _

"_I'm right here, Thad." Finn said, reaching for his neck to see if he still had a pulse. Puck looked into the distance and shook his head._

"I try not to think anything about that day. Do you? Finn?"

"It just keeps popping in my head. And I just…I just…" he trailed off, going back to seeing his brother get shot.

"Finn. Finn!" Puck said, trying to get his attention back to him. "You just what?"

"I just…"

"Oh, Puck!" Quinn said, running into the room to hug her husband. "Puck."

"I'm okay." Puck said, trying to reassure a frantic Quinn that he was doing just fine.

"I don't understand. How did this happen?" Quinn asked, turning her attention to Finn.

"Puck will explain everything. You two need to talk, Quinn. He's going to be fine; I took the bullet out myself. Puck, there's extra morphine in the machine, you just…you enjoy it." Finn said, walking out of the room.

"Finn, wait!" Puck called out after him to no avail.

Finn took off for a different part of the hospital. This was too much for him and honestly, he wasn't sure how much more he could handle.

"Watch where you're…Finn." Rachel said, almost colliding with him. "Sorry. I thought you were a hospital visitor. They always tend to be rushing like that."

"No, you're fine." Finn said.

Rachel squinted her eyes are looked at him. "Finn, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Are you okay?"

She sighed. "I could be better. It's just been a long night, you know?"

"And it's about to get longer." Finn said.

"I'm sure you've had longer." Rachel took a deep breath and sighed. "Look, Finn, I was wondering if we could talk."

"Talk? Yeah sure. We can talk later. Look, I have something I have to do right now. We'll talk at the end of the shift." Finn said, taking off in the other direction.

Rachel sighed and watched him walk off. "I actually wanted to talk now." she muttered to herself. She shook her head and started walking to the nurses' station.

In the trauma room, Mercedes and Kurt were talking about their patient. "I just can't imagine the recovery process for this."

"There isn't one. When I was a medic in Iraq, a bomb went off and killed three guys. This one guy survived, except the entire right side of his body was burned all the way down to the muscle. Lots of skin grafts, lots of plastic surgery, and a lot of pain. So let's just focus on making her comfortable and easing her pain. One step at a time." Kurt said, taking off the gloves.

At the nurses' station, Molly got off the phone and started to address the doctors and nurses that were standing by the desk. "That was dispatch. There's been a secondary explosion. They're trying to triage on sight, but they're requesting help."

Rachel ran a hand through her hair. "We're already stretched too thin."

Finn, overhearing the conversation, came up from behind. "I got it, I can go. Puck is fine, I just saw him. Spread the word, okay?" he said before taking off.

"Wait, Finn." Rachel said, chasing after him. "Can we talk for a second?"

"Yeah. What's up?" Finn said, making Rachel crinkle her nose. Didn't he say later they could talk at the end of the shift?

Not wanting to upset him, she said something different than she was planning on originally. "The only place you should be going right now is home. You've been through a lot tonight."

"Yeah, and so have you but you're still here." He pointed into the shooter's room. "Is the shooter going to make it?"

"He's stable. Don't change the subject."

"I'm fine. I've been through way worse and I'm anxious to get out there. I don't want to be late and have it on my hands."

"Finn, no."

"You have another day shifter coming in and plenty of people here to help you handle things. But no one out there can do what I can do, and you know that I'm right." He turned his attention to Molly. "Molly, tell them I'm on my way."

Rachel sighed and turned around, her eyes landing on Kurt. "Kurt, can Mercedes handle your patient without you?"

"Yeah, she's got it down."

"There was another explosion at the factory and Finn is on his way. I need you to go and keep an eye on him. He's just…he's way too jacked up."

"You got it." Kurt said without a second thought. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine." He gave her a knowing look. "I am. I really am fine." Kurt shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

"Hey, Rachel." Brody said, coming to stand next to her at the nurses' station. "How are you holding up?"

"Just focused on getting to the end of the shift."

"Why don't you go home?" Brody suggested.

"Would you? Brody, this is my ER, we're understaffed as it is. I'm staying."

"Okay, I just had to ask. I'm headed back to surgery. Can I borrow your intern Artie to do a post-op eval on Puck? It might go better with a friendly face."

"Sure. I'll send him up when things slow down here."

"Page me if you need me for anything." Brody said, laying one of his hands down on the desk.

Rachel smiled and put her hand on top of his. "I will."

"I love you." Brody said before taking off.

Rachel gave him a small smile. "I love you, too."

Kurt ran through the hospital when he got his jacket on and his medical bag put together. He saw Finn still stand there and stopped in front of him. "Hey Finn, you ready to go?" He waited a few seconds. "Finn, we got to go."

Finn, however, was having another flashback to Afghanistan and to the day that his brother was killed.

"Finn, come on, we got to go." Kurt said, trying to get his attention one more time. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Finn said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going with you. I figured maybe I could use the excitement." Kurt said, jogging off to where the ambulance was waiting for them. Finn took a few more deep breaths and followed him out.

About twenty minutes later, the two of them were out at the scene of the crime. "When I raise your arm, does that hurt?" Kurt asked the person he was talking to.

All around them, rescue workers were trying to get people loaded onto stretchers and into the various ambulances to take them to hospitals.

"Get the people with less severe injuries off to University Hospital." Finn said, walking around to as he was giving orders. "Make sure to label them before you ship and take a marker to write their conditions and their vitals on their right arm. The more severe injuries need stabilized out here before getting transported." Finn said, kneeling down to look at one of the victims.

"Alright, this guy is ready. Clean him up and get him to the hospital." Kurt said to the EMT he was working with.

"Doctors, my men say they have a woman inside who's under a beam. They're trying to get her out but she's inhaled a lot of smoke and her breathing is labored."

Kurt turned around to look at Finn. "Two man job."

"Absolutely. Take us to her." Finn said to the fire chief.

"Alright, but you're going to need masks. You have about five minutes until this building comes down."

"I think we can handle it." Kurt said as they started to follow the chief into the building.

Back at the hospital, Milo was struggling against his restraints. "It hurts really bad. I need something for the pain."

"That's too bad." She got really close to the shooter. "And you know, it's probably going to get worse." She couldn't help the smile that started forming on her face.

"Please. I get it, you hate me."

"You get it?" Rachel yelled, shaking the bed rails, causing more pain to the shooter. "You murdered a man, you were probably going to murder me, and you almost killed one of my friends. The only reason that I fixed you up is because it's my job. I hope that you live to be over a hundred years old and you spend the rest of your life rotting in prison because that is what you deserve. So no. No, you do not get any pain medication. You can lie here and suffer for all I care."

Someone opened the door and the detective came in. "How's he doing?"

Rachel looked over at him and glared. "He's fine." she spat.

Back in the lobby, Jesse and Marley were talking with each other. "We just had our fourth victim pass away from the explosion tonight." He held up a manila folder. "The file says Joshua Gomez."

Marley sighed. "Oh my God. I just spoke with his mother. I hate this. It's like you never get to tell them any good news."

"I'll do it with you." Jesse said without hesitation. Marley nodded and led him to the waiting room.

"Ms. Gomez?" Marley said when she came into the room. A woman who was rubbed rosary beads looked up expectantly when she heard her name. "I'm afraid I have some bad news. Your son, Joshua. He suffered massive trauma from the explosion and he died."

Marley absolutely hated this part. She hated seeing the look on people's faces go from expectant to absolutely crushed. "I am so sorry."

Back at the explosion sight, Finn and Kurt were just getting inside the building."She's over here." one of the firefighters called to them. "She's trapped under the debris and she's having trouble breathing and she can't get any oxygen from the mask."

They heard the sound of an electric saw cutting steel as they tried to get the woman out from the debris. Finn took off his mask as he looked at their victim. "Her airway is swelled shut. Kurt, we have to do a trach. Prep her neck."

"You have to put the mask back on." the firefighter said.

"I can't see a thing through that mask." Finn said, coughing again. He began prepping her and had to hope for the best.

"We have to get everyone out of here, Doc!" the firefighters said.

"Are you in?" another asked, watching Finn do the procedure.

He was silent for a minute, then looked up at them. "I'm in."

The firefighters picked up the saw and started sawing through the steel again as Finn put his mask back on. He heard a rumble and was brought back to Afghanistan, when there was the huge blast right next to their camp. "Finn!" he heard Kurt say. "Finn we're done here and we have to go. There's a possible gas leak, we have to go."

"Alright, get her up slowly and carefully and continue to push the oxygen." Finn said, getting up and dusting himself off.

Back at the hospital, Puck was waking up to Artie working on him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Doctor Weston told me to put in the catheter." Artie said, trying to calm down from being spooked by Puck.

"He told you?" Puck asked, not believing Artie completely. "Or told you to tell a nurse?"

"Well, told me to tell a nurse. I just thought…you know…"

"Have you ever done one of these before?" Puck asked.

"Sure, yeah. On a cadaver."

Puck gave Artie a steely glare. "Well, you're not doing one on me."

"Did you want me to grab a nurse?"

"No need. There is no way I'm getting a catheter. It is not going to happen. On your way. Shoo, shoo. Keep going."

Back at the explosion scene, they all made it out before the building exploded. "Let me check her tube before we transport her." Kurt said. "Finn, you want to…" Kurt started, looking around trying to find his colleague and friend. "Finn?" He turned back to the firefighters. "Get her to the rig." He put his mask back and ran towards the building. "Finn!" he yelled. "Finn! What the hell are you doing?"

"I thought I heard someone yell." Finn said, looking around the factory again. "I have to find her."

"Finn, the building is clear. No one is here. It's going to collapse, we have to get out of here. Come on, let's go." Kurt said, grabbing Finn's arm to pull him out of the building.

Back at the hospital, Mercedes' patient with burns all over her body wasn't doing so well. "Her oxygen levels are dropping." the nurse said to her.

Mercedes took her stethoscope from around her neck and put it to her patient's chest. "She's not moving any air. Rachel!" Mercedes called.

"What's going on in there, Mercedes?" Rachel asked from the next trauma room over.

"The burnt skin around her chest and abdomen is too tight and she can't breathe."

"She's going to suffocate. She needs an escerotomy." Rachel turned her attention back to her patient that was crashing. "I have my hands full here. Have you ever done one?"

"I've only seen videos." Mercedes said, trying to recall what she'd seen.

"Okay, make an incision through her chest wall. It will allow the soft tissue to expand so she can breathe easier." She turned her attention to Sam. "I've got this, can you go assist Mercedes?"

"Sure." Sam said, grabbing a tray as he ran across the room to help Mercedes. "Look, Mercedes, I've seen you do some pretty badass things since you've been here. I mean, for God's sake, you pulled a fork out of a girl's throat earlier tonight. You got this." Sam said, smiling at her.

Mercedes took a deep breath and started cutting her chest open and smiled. "It's working. She's breathing."

"Her oxygen is rising." the nurse said.

"Nice job, Mercedes." Rachel said from across the room.

Mercedes looked up at Sam. "Thanks for the pep talk, Sam."

He smiled back at her and winked. "Never had a doubt."

"Now we just have to ID her." Mercedes said, sighing.

Back in the main lobby, Marley was approached by a man entering the hospital. "Excuse me. Can you help me?"

"Are you here to see a doctor or are you looking for—"

"My wife. Susan. She was working in the factory tonight and I've been trying to call her on her cell phone since the accident. I went to University and they said to check here."

"Okay, let's get some information…"

"She's got to be okay. It's all my fault."

"How?" Marley asked.

"I always bring her some food in the middle of her shift and I was late tonight. She should have been in the parking lot with me."

"Okay, just give me your name."

"It's Max Leonard. Of course the one night I'm late…"

"Is there anything you can tell me about your wife that might help us track her down?"

"She's about five-five, blonde hair, blues eyes. She's got a little green fairy tattooed on the inside of her wrist. I told her it was silly, but she loves Moulin Rouge."

Marley nodded, writing everything down. "Why don't you have a seat in the waiting room, and I will find you when I know something."

Back in Puck's room, he was absolutely miserable, especially since he knew things were going on in the hospital that he should be helping with. "Thanks." he muttered to one of the nurses. He saw Artie walking towards his room with a bottle in his hands. "I said no catheter."

"I spoke to Doctor Weston and he said that if you can urinate, you don't need one."

"Tell Brody if he wants a catheter so damn badly, he can stick it up his own dick."

"Yeah, I can't tell him that." Artie said, trying to imagine how the conversation would go down.

"Just give me the bottle and leave." Puck said.

"Actually, he's going to want proof. I kind of have to stay."

"I cannot do it with you watching. Step outside or something."

"If I leave, you're just going to lie about it."

"How will I lie? There will be no urine in the bottle. Can you at least give me some water?" Puck asked, trying not to get too agitated.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Are you telling me what to do?"

"No, I wasn't uh…" Artie started to trail off. "Actually, yes. I'm the doctor and you're the patient. Normally, you would be my boss, but you aren't right now. If you get backed up, you can develop renal failure. So, I'm going to grab you a glass of water and if this does not work, I'm grabbing a nurse to put in the catheter."

Puck gave Artie a nod of approval. "Okay, doctor. You make an excellent point. That's exactly how I would have said it. Can you get me some water please?"

"Yes sir." Artie said, walking over to the sink to give him a glass of water. "Do you want me to leave the water on? Sometimes that helps when I can't go. It just…makes it happen."

Puck looked completely disgusted. "I did not need that visual."

Back in the main lobby, Jesse was walking up to talk to Brody. "Doctor Weston. I just wanted to thank you one more time for getting me in to see Doctor Kleinfelder."

"Glad to do it. He's the best ocular surgeon I know."

"He ran some tests on me. He said they'd probably be able to get me in for the eye surgery next month."

"That's great news, Jesse. I know this trouble with your vision has been a burden on you. Anyway, I should head back up to the OR." Brody said, patting Jesse on the arm as he walked by.

Mercedes came out of her patient's room, trying to find Marley in the sea of people. "Doctor Rose," she said, finally finding her. "You're trying to match patients with their family members, right?"

"Yeah, do you have something?"

"This ID was with the woman in trauma three. She's very badly burned." Mercedes said, handing the badge to Marley. "It was in her jacket. I just found it."

Marley looked at the badge and sighed. It was for Susan Leonard, the wife of the man that Marley had just talked to. She looked up into the waiting room and saw Max was sitting there with his head in his hands.

"Oh my God." he said when she got him to his wife's trauma room. "Susan? I'm so sorry."

"We found her name tag with her jacket. She's intubated so she won't be able to talk."

"Is she in pain?"

"She's heavily medicated."

"Can I touch her?" Max asked, going into her hospital room.

"Yes, but try to be gentle."

"Oh my God. Susan." That's all Max could keep saying as he stared at his wife.

In the ambulance coming back to San Antonio Memorial, Finn and Kurt were pumping oxygen into the woman in order to save her life. "That was a great incision you made, considering you were half blind." Kurt said.

"_Finn, you want me to take a turn there? I can step in for you." one of the soldiers in their platoon said as Finn kept pumping Thad's heart._

"_No, it's okay. I got it."_

"_Sorry man. You did everything you could." Puck said. _

"_I thought the captain was dead." another soldier said to Puck._

"_His brain is gone, but he's pumping to keep his heart moving so we can transplant it into Nick." Puck said._

_Finn jumped as Thad suddenly woke up and pushed the oxygen bag out of the way. "Dude, why won't you answer my question? Why?"_

_It's just a dream, it's just a dream, Finn kept repeating to himself._

"Finn, Finn!" Kurt said, trying to get him back into reality. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Finn repeated for the umpteenth time that night. "Are we almost there?"

"Yeah. Five minutes out." Kurt said, getting suspicious. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

Back at the hospital, Marley sat Rachel down in one of the break rooms to have a talk with her. "So tell me, how are you doing?"

"I keep telling people I'm fine because I want to be fine. But I'm having a really hard time focusing and I can't get it out of my head."

"The last thing you should do is get it out of your head." Marley said. "What you need to do is talk about it and deal with it. But honestly, after tonight you shouldn't be here."

"I have to. I can't just leave. Everyone that I care about; they're here."

"And none of those people would be judging you, Rachel."

"Well, I would judge me. And honestly, I'm judging myself about Finn right now."

"About what?"

"Until I was in that room tonight, with my life on the line, I had no idea what Finn went through in that war. I thought I knew, I thought I understood, but I was frustrated with him, with his anger, with his anxiety, and his depression and I…I didn't think that it was ever going to end." Rachel said as tears started streaming down her face. "But if I feel this way after _fifteen minutes_ of hell, what does he feel like after fifteen months?"

"I tried to talk to him about it before. But he wouldn't go there."

Rachel shook her head sadly. "He never does." She sighed and jumped when the door opened and Mercedes appeared.

"Rachel, can you take a look at the woman in trauma three? Her oxygen levels just won't come up and I tried to make her comfortable but…"

Rachel picked up her stethoscope from the table. "This is a terrible way to go. Is her husband with her?"

"Yeah." Mercedes said, looking between the two of them.

"I'll talk to him." Marley said, getting up from her spot at the table.

"Alright, let's go." Rachel said, leading them to the trauma room. When they got to the room, she listened to the woman's heart, looked at Marley, and shook her head slowly.

Marley sighed. "Mr. Leonard, I'm so sorry."

Mercedes looked over at Rachel. "I really, really, hate this part of the job."

Rachel gave her a small smile. "Don't ever lose that."

"Doctor Berry?" one of the nurses said. "It's the shooter. They need you."

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut. She really didn't want to deal with his whining and complaining right now. "Fine." She started walking the few doors down to where he was.

"Damn it." Brody said, looking at the shooter's neck. "Most of his blood is already on the floor. I'm calling it. Four-oh-two AM."

"Got it." Sam said. "Four-oh-two AM."

"He's dead?" Detective Gonzales said. "Why?"

"Carotid artery burst open. This guy needed to be in an IR center, then the OR with me. The sutures tore. The hole needed to be repaired with a patch." he said as Rachel pushed open the door.

"What happened?" she asked, looking around the room.

"Who dropped the ball on this?"

"He was my patient. But the field was completely dry when I closed him up, I double checked."

"You said that he was stable." the detective said accusingly.

"Because he was. Brody, you were in the OR and I didn't think he was stable enough to wait for IR."

"So in other words, you screwed up." the detective said, his voice getting more and more accusingly as the seconds went by.

Rachel's eyes widened when she realized what was happening.

The detective pulled out his cell phone. "Captain. He didn't make it. Yeah, the lady doctor that was in there with him did the operation."

Rachel's eyes narrowed and Brody led her out of the room. "Sorry about that, but he should have been brought up to surgery."

"You guys were swamped upstairs. Brody, I made a tough call."

"And it was the wrong one. Look, I know this has been a hell of a night for you but unless someone is crashing right in front of you, surgery needs to happen in the OR. Just have someone get me and I'll come right down for you."

"Rachel, do you have a second?" Kurt asked, coming up from behind them.

"Just a second." She gave Brody one last look and turned to Kurt.

"He's off."

"What happened?"

"I mean, I wish I was wrong, but I figure you sent me out there for a reason."

"Yeah, tell me everything."

"I've never seen him like this before. I've seen others like this after the war. He's jumpy, he's sweaty, he said he heard a voice."

"He said that?"

"He could have. We were in a building and it was chaos. He might have heard one. But I don't think so."

"I should have made him go home."

"Well, we both know that's easier said than done. I tried to get him to let me have the patient, it was even a basic one, and he wouldn't let me have any part of it."

"I'm going to try and talk to him, but Kurt, can you please standby?"

"Okay. He's in trauma two."

"Thank you." Rachel called over her shoulder as she started to walk to the trauma room where Finn was.

"Doctor Berry."

"What?" Rachel asked, started to get agitated with the detective.

"I need you to tell me exactly what happened."

"I'm sorry, I can't. This is just not a good time."

"Yeah, but you told me he was fine. Then I told my boss he was fine. And now the guy is dead. I need to know why because this is a major case."

"She said it wasn't a good time, detective." Jesse said, stepping out from behind the nurses' station. "Doctor, do what you need to do." Jesse said. He then turned his attention to the detective. "Listen, you can talk to her after her shift. Or even better, maybe tomorrow. She's been through a lot."

"The other doctor said it was a screw up. Was it? Or maybe she wasn't trying as hard as she could. You bet your ass I'm going to find out."

Rachel walked into the trauma room where Finn was and watched him work. "How's it going?"

"It's okay."

"Is it?"

"Yep." Finn said, not taking his attention off the patient.

Rachel walked over to where the glove dispenser was on the wall and put some on. "Finn, I want you to step down and let me finish this."

"No, I'm fine."

"You are not fine and you are not like yourself. I've seen you like this before. Finn, please. Let me help you. Do it for me."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. I should go check on Puck." Finn said, trying to get his bearings together.

Rachel nodded and smiled at him. "Yes. That's a good idea. I'll be up soon." Rachel said.

"Is everything okay?" Jesse asked, walking into the hospital room.

"He's fine. He just needed to talk a break, that's all."

"Finally, someone got through to him." Jesse said, stepping further into the trauma room. "And just so you know, the detective is on a rampage about what happened, Rachel."

"It's not a priority right now."

"Oh but it will be. We need to protect you on this one. I'm going to set you up with our lawyer. This isn't going to go away." Jesse paused, seeing something on the victim's wrist. He walked closer and picked up her arm. "Is that a fairy? Did we get a name on this patient?"

"I don't know. Ask Kurt." Rachel said, going back to work on making sure she was going to be okay. Jesse grabbed his phone and took a picture of the tattoo to show to Marley.

He walked out of the room and went directly to her. "Marley, earlier this evening you were talking to a man who mentioned something about a tattoo on someone's wrist."

Marley nodded sadly. "That was Max Leonard. We already found his wife Susan. She's in room three."

"I did a procedure on her." Mercedes said, interjecting.

"And she's not going to make it." Marley said.

"But Rachel is working on someone who has a green fairy tattoo on her wrist." Jesse said.

Mercedes' eyes widened. "What?" she asked, reaching forward to see the picture on Jesse's phone.

"I don't understand, there was a nametag." Marley said.

"Yeah, I found it. It was in her jacket." Mercedes said.

"Maybe she borrowed the jacket. I don't know." Jesse said.

Marley nodded and started walking towards where Mr. Leonard was. When she got to the door, she paused and took a deep breath. "Mr. Leonard?" He turned around and started walking towards them. "Do you have a picture of your wife?"

"What? Why?"

"On your phone or something?"

"I don't understand. Why would you want a picture?" He took out his phone and handed it to Marley.

She looked at it and smiled. "I have to show you something."

They walked down the hallway to the real Susan's room. "Oh my God!" he said in a completely different tone than he'd been saying all night. "Susan!" he said, stroking her hair. "I thought you were…but you're okay! You're okay!"

"Wow." Jesse said from where he was watching at the door.

"Unbelievable, huh?" Kurt said at the nurses' station.

"But who is that poor woman who was burned and who does she belong to?" Mercedes asked.

"Mercedes, let's see if we can match her to any of the other reports." Marley said as Jesse's phone started to ring.

"Ah, Doctor Kleinfelder. You're up early. Yes, of course I have a minute to talk." Jesse said as he started walking towards his office.

Meanwhile, in one of the bathrooms, Finn was staring at his reflection in the mirror. He was gripping the edge of the sink and was heavily breathing. He turned the water on and splashed some of it on his face. He looked back at his reflection again and it triggered the same flashback he'd been having.

"_Finn. F-inn. Why…didn't you…"_

He splashed more water on his face and spit it out.

"Why didn't you shoot?" he heard Thad's voice echo in his mind. He saw Thad get shot, then right after that, he saw Puck get shot in the radiology suite and saw them both sink to the ground at the same time. Unable to overcome the anger, he started punching at the mirror in the bathroom.

Back in Puck's room, he finally finished peeing. "Finally. I thought I would never…" He breathed heavily.

"What is it? Are you okay?" Artie asked. Puck pulled the bottle out and handed it to him and Artie was surprised to see it was bloody.

Puck grasped at his chest. "I can't-I can't-I can't breathe."

"Nurse!" Artie yelled. "I need Doctor Weston right now! Get me Finn, get me Rachel, get me anybody."

Puck was immediately rushed to surgery and Brody was working on him. "We need to stop the bleeding. More suction, please!"

Rachel and Kurt were watching from outside of the OR and were there in case things started to get dicey and Brody needed more hands. Finn came bursting into the OR floor and didn't stop moving until he got to Puck's OR.

"What happened?" Finn asked, getting scrubbed in.

"Epidural hematoma. The bullet must have ricocheted off this spine and blood is compressing his spinal cord. If we don't relieve the bleeding, he could become paralyzed or worse." Brody said, looking up at Finn.

"He can't die."

"You need to evacuate all this blood here." Brody said to one of the interns helping out.

"He can't die." Finn repeated.

"Finn, you okay?"

"_You gotta stay with me, man." Finn said as they dragged Thad out of the compound. "We've got to stop the bleeding."_

"You have to stop the bleeding!" Finn said, rushing towards Puck. Sam turned around to see Finn charging towards the operating table and held him back. "We can't leave him like this!"

Rachel opened the OR door. "Finn!" Rachel said, trying to get his attention.

"GET HIM OUT OF HERE!" Brody yelled.

"Finn, it's us. It's Sam and Kurt." Kurt said, trying to calm him down.

"Rachel, I need you to step in." Brody said from the OR. "I need you to assist."

She turned and looked at Kurt and Sam, who were trying their best to restrain Finn. Kurt gave her a nod and Rachel started breathing heavily.

"Rachel." Brody called for her again. Rachel shook her head and put on her surgical mask as she walked into the OR. "That guy is a freaking nut job and he's going to drag you and everyone else here down with him if you're not careful."

"Just focus on saving Puck right now, okay?" Rachel said, snapping at Brody.

As the sun started to rise, Marley knocked on Jesse's office door and walked in. "I just checked on Puck. No news yet. And then they told me about the whole thing with Finn. Were you there?"

"What?" Jesse asked, completely confused as to what was going on.

"Finn. Do you know if he's okay?"

"I-uh-I don't know."

Marley raised an eyebrow. "Is everything okay?"

"I just got a call from Doctor Kleinfelder, the eye surgeon."

"What did he say?"

"It's a little more complicated than we thought. I have a tumor behind my eye."

"Oh, Jesse, I'm so sorry."

Jesse raised his eyebrows and said, "It's a hell of a night, huh?" Marley sighed and walked over to sit next to him. She reached out and patted his arm.

Back in the trauma room with the unknown victim, Mercedes leaned down and started talking to her. "We've tracked down your mother in New Orleans, Mary."

"She's not going to be able to get here. But we're going to be right here with you and we're not going to leave your side." Kurt said.

"I have her on the phone." Mercedes said. "Your mother. She wants to talk to you. Go ahead, ma'am." Mercedes said into the phone.

"I love you so much, Mary. You will always be my baby girl. Do you hear me? Always."

Mercedes swallowed thickly. "She hears you."

Quinn was standing next to Rachel and Brody a few rooms down. "So, he's going to be okay?" Quinn asked Brody after Puck's second surgery. She looked down and started twisting her wedding band, nervous about what Brody was going to say.

"We got the blood evacuated and his spinal cord looks good." Brody said, giving Quinn a small smile. "If all goes as expected, he should make a full recovery."

Quinn let out an audible sigh of relief. "Thank you." she whispered, turning to Rachel to give her a hug.

"You can go in and see him, if you want." Brody said. Quinn nodded and walked into his hospital room and Artie gave her a small smile when she went in.

Brody turned towards Rachel and looked like he was about to say something, but she opened her mouth before he could. "I have to check on something."She crinkled her nose slightly and walked off, leaving Brody with a slight stunned look on his face.

Rachel walked down the hospital hallway and passed the detective on the case and gave him a slight glare before walking away. She wasn't completely out of earshot when she heard him say over the phone "Tell the captain I want to bring the doctor in for questioning. Let's just say I don't think she did everything she could."

Rachel shook her head and kept walking. She stopped in front of one of the waiting rooms and saw Finn sitting inside with his head in his hands. She took a deep breath and opened the door. "Take the cuffs off of him. Now." Rachel said, gesturing to the silver handcuffs Finn had on his wrists.

The security guard looked up from his magazine. "It's for his own protection."

"Please." Rachel said in a firm voice. The guard sighed and sat forward in his chair to take off the handcuffs as Finn watched with a blank expression on his face.

"Thanks, man." Finn said, patting the guard on the knee as he got up.

"I'll wait outside." The guard put the magazine back on the table and left the room.

Rachel watched him walk out, pulled a chair over to where Finn was, and sat down in the chair in front of him. "We don't have to talk, I'm just going to sit with you, okay?"

Finn looked up at her with a hard look on his face. "It was my fault."

"No, Puck's going to be okay. That was not your fault; you did what anyone would do in that situation."

"That's not what I'm talking about." Finn said, cutting her off.

Rachel gave him a weird look. "Okay…"

"I keep having these memories…dreams…whatever you want to call them."

"What about?"

Finn's lip quivered slightly. "About when Thad was…was killed. I keep seeing him get shot over and over...I keep reliving that moment." He paused and looked Rachel in the eyes. "That's what I'm talking about. _That's_ what was my fault."

"No." Rachel said, shaking her head.

"Yeah." Finn said, flashing back to his last moments with his brother.

"_Alright, we'll take the front, and you take the back entrance. Watch your six." Thad said to Finn as they were about to enter an enemy compound in Afghanistan. Finn pushed open the door and froze._

"Yeah." Finn repeated, shrugging his shoulders. "I hesitated."

_Finn flashed back to seeing his brother bleeding out on the compound floor. "Why didn't you shoot?" he asked. "Why?" Thad repeated._

"The sniper, he was a kid." Finn said, his eyes starting to water up. "He was maybe twelve years old. _Maybe."_ Finn said.

_The sniper inside the building turned around when Finn opened the door. Finn froze, unsure of what to do. _

"He was a kid, Rachel."

_And since Finn hesitated, Thad thought it was okay to enter the compound. The kid turned around and immediately began firing at the rest of the platoon, hitting Thad right in the chest. "Thad!" Finn yelled out, seeing his older brother sink to the floor. Someone else from the platoon came in and fired at the sniper, killing him. Finn, however, couldn't take his eyes off of his brother as Thad held a hand out for Finn to take. _

"So I hesitated, and I got my brother killed." A lone tear started to slide down his face.

"No." Rachel said, shifting in her seat.

"Yeah, yeah." Finn said.

"No." Rachel said with more force that time.

Finn took a deep breath and started again. "For years, I've been blocking it, blocking that it's my fault…"

"You've been carrying this around with you the whole time?" Rachel asked, tears starting to form at the corner of her eyes.

Finn opened his mouth to speak, but just couldn't find the right words. "I…I had to tell somebody, Rachel. I had to. I thought I could bury it in here," Finn said, gesturing towards his chest and pushing down, showing that he was trying to mash it all down inside of him. "And I can't. I can't." He really started to cry then. "Because I-I got Thad killed."

"Oh, Finn." Rachel said, sighing.

"And for that, I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry."

"Shhh, I'm going to take care of you." Rachel said, rubbing his shoulders as Finn bowed his head and put it in her lap. She stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head, and went back to stroking his hair. "I'm not going anywhere."

Brody was walking the hallways in an attempt to find Rachel. He stopped in front of the waiting room and saw the two of them in the waiting room together. More importantly to him, though, he saw Finn with his head in Rachel's lap, and he saw Rachel rubbing his arm.

Brody saw Finn sit up and Rachel kept rubbing his arm. Brody, deciding he'd seen enough, walked away.

Rachel gave Finn a small smile as she pushed his hair back so it wasn't all in his face as he kept crying.

**Author's Note: And with this, we finish season one of Pumping Blood. Luckily for me, and subsequently for you, NBC renewed The Night Shift for a second season, so there will be a second season of my Glee-ified Night Shift. However, since the next season of the show will not premiere until next summer (most likely), I will not be revisiting this story until the new season premieres. I hope you all enjoyed this because I certainly had fun writing it. Thanks for reading and I hope you come back for more next summer!**

**As a quick note, I will publish the next season as a different story and it'll probably be called something like Pumping Blood Season Two. I hope you all enjoyed this story and come back for more next summer. Follow me on Twitter or Tumblr for more updates!**


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